Last month I watched “Summer of Love,” a documentary of the happenings in San Francisco during the summer of 1967. Thousands of young people from all over the country flocked to the city, mainly to Golden Gate Park and Hashbury which was the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. These young people had been deeply affected by the death of JFK and by the Vietnam War . . . or maybe it was because there were drugs such as marijuana and LSD available that summer. So they flocked to the city – some because of their feelings about what was going on in the country and others who just wanted a good time with some drugs. There were free soup lines, a free store, sleeping in the park and free love. Timothy Leary made the following phrase famous: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” He made it up while taking a shower after someone told him he needed a snappy saying to publicize the benefits of LSD. So that summer the young people apparently had a ball and really messed up that part of the city and probably themselves. And then they left.

Now, 40 years later, an article in “Time” magazine by John Cloud says that new research on psychedelic drugs shows promise for their therapeutic use. Harvard is conducting research into therapeutic uses of psychedelics – Ecstasy – right now. This is the first time this has gone on since they fired Timothy Leary in 1963. Studies are showing benefits from the use of psychedelics in treating mental illness. Researchers have found antidepressant effects after the use of ketamine(Special K), reductions in core OCD symptoms after the use of the chemical psilocybin found in psychedelic mushrooms. And the Beckley Foundation, a British trust, is going to be doing the first human studies of LSD since the 1970s. This all may be well and good, but many people worry that it could precipitate a new round of recreational use. Time will tell.

My only brush with the “Dark Side” came one afternoon a while back when I was at some friends’ house. They were going to smoke some marijuana, and since I had never tried it, I thought, “Why not?” So I tried it and ended up on the toilet where I then fell over into the empty bathtub . . . twice! When I finally recovered, I asked my friends if that was a common occurrence in instances such as mine. I don’t think they answered. Needless to say, that was the last time I saw those friends and the last time I ever visited the “Dark Side.”