How did the movement against methamphetamines come about in the 1960s?

How did the movement against methamphetamines come about in the 1960s?

Nicolas Rasmussen (Professor of History and Philosophy) gives expert video advice on: During the mid-1960's, how prevelant were amphetamines in the average American life?; What role did amphetamines play in hippie culture during the 60's?; How did the movement against methamphetamines come about in the 1960s? and more...

Amphetamine is preferred by the injector, it's not just methamphetamine. In San Francisco, it's methamphetamine though, and there is a big, kind of a movement against "speed freaks" or "speed" as a dangerous drug. There's a thought that the counter-culture tries to keep kids from experimenting with speed, right. It'll kill you. And there's a "speed kills" kind of general campaign led by some of the most credible figures. Allen Ginsberg, you could say, starts it off. He had a famous interview in 1965 where he declared speed to be a bad thing for the counter-culture community. By the mid '67, '68, you've got this sort of general campaign which is getting mainstream media attention that speed is particularly bad, so it's this first kind of panic about methamphetamine in particular with the mainstream media. Cynics have argued that the attention of the mainstream media to the injection of methamphetamine is to take attention off the fact that drugs seized on the street at the time were over 90 percent product from U.S. pharmaceutical firms.