Anti-Prohibition folk music: The global truth, or a global threat?

A lot of popular music includes direct or subtle drug references.
In fact, "prohibition" has now become a term crucial to assumptions of social change.

Critics might caution that ideals of Western liberty hide a darker truth of social harm and dependence.
Where are the songs of people who became schizophrenic from pot, or the ravaged lungs from smoking in general, or the pickled livers from booze?

Why is there such an unconditional attitude of liberating drug use?

Well, whatever your position on the issue, let's examine some global music.
I cannot define "folk music" for everybody, so just add your favorite song and some critical thought.

For me the question is: if drugs are decriminalized, then what will resistance songs be about?
Being old, washed-out and high?
Won't decriminalization kill the music?

Here's an Aussie in Ireland:

People can still sing about love, injustices (dont have to look hard there) and their life, ect. A person can sing about pretty much anything. So no I dont think that the genre will suffer very much.

Originally posted by halfoldman
For me the question is: if drugs are decriminalized, then what will resistance songs be about?
Being old, washed-out and high?
Won't decriminalization kill the music?

Most excellent music we all enjoy is the direct result of drug use.

I'd be more afraid about what would happen to our music if people had no access to drugs at all.

Khar

reply to post by Kharron

I would dispute that.
I recall loving music since I was a kid, before I tried anything.

I think one can also distinguish between music that celebrated legal/illegal drug use, and music that was really about something else, but some substance (maybe coffee or nicotine) simply influenced its production.

Anyway, the Lower Eastside perform a classic US song:

reply to post by halfoldman


I wasn't referring to our drug use, although it helps. I'm a musician and a former opera singer, so from experience I can tell you it doesn't hurt.

What I was referring to is the drug use in the artists. The majority of good music is the direct result of drug use among the artists. You may do drugs or not - your choice, but that music we listen to would not sound like that had your favorite artist chosen not to partake.

You may choose to disagree, but you'd be wrong to.

Khar

reply to post by Kharron

Thanks for the explanation.
I hear you on that.

System of a Down: Prison Song:


Now, how would decriminalization affect that global network of drug-money?
OK we'd have less people in prisons, that's the only benefit we can prove.
Otherwise it just seems to legitimize the dirty drug wars.
And people wasting their lives as addicts will continue to pay, now with sin-taxes attached.
Now that decriminalization seems so tangible it also begins to raise some serious questions.
They are not popular questions at the moment.

The singing Jamaican tour-guide.
While very entertaining, one wonders whether it is superior to being normal?
Sobriety is underrated.
It's good for people to enjoy life however, and their occupation.

Perhaps this is what happens when sobriety reigns.
The Muppets' satire version of "Danny Boy":

Cheers everybody...

To the days when everything had a bigger purpose and revolution seemed a real possibility.

Some Donovan - Catch the Wind:
I hope everybody finds their own wind, and that it always blows them forwards.

John Denver shares his experience of being high in the Rocky Mountains:

Puff the Magic Dragon - Peter, Paul and Mary.
Now if there ever was an innocent song that became misunderstood, this is it.


Actually that's a bloody good song.
They rarely still write them that good.

reply to post by Kharron


I'd venture a guess you don't know to many musicians. I'd say drug use is probably lower amongst serious musicians than the general population.

*I should add that I'm talking about the general population of young people here, for older people I'm sure this is not the case.

*And I don't mean to say that musicians don't use drugs, just that in my experience they use less of them than other people my age, and don't seem as prone to excess. Plus, other than a beer or two to take the edge off, most musicians I know don't use drugs while writing music.

Peter Tosh - Watcha gonna do?
With reggae artists it's a difficult choice, because it is "folk music" in a sense, and the themes are very blatant.
But they never really shout slogans.
Instead, they describe the struggles of a community and diaspora with its own customs and beliefs.

Some would say the trouble started in the late 1960's.

The song "Hashish" in the musical Hair mentions over twenty drugs in under a minute!
Interestingly most of those were prescription medication, or surprisingly: shoe polish???

Little Britain USA - a comedy sketch.
Grandma Mildred finds out her grandson smokes cigarettes, and goes into her own sordid past.
It seems she aged somewhat prematurely from all the "harmless" substances.
Both a laugh and a message in this clip.

reply to post by halfoldman

I have to say the ‘music’ you’re posting furnishes an excellent example of why drugs and music must always go together. That’s right, ‘must’, not ‘should’. Kharron is right. Real music and states of intoxication are inseparable and always have been.

I could give you a list of genuinely anti-drug songs as long as your arm, all of them rich with the fruit of bitter experience. Instead, I'll give you a much shorter list made up of songs frankly relating the dark side of drug abuse, every one of them composed by those well-known dope fiends, the Rolling Stones.

• 2000 Light Years from Home
  
  
• Before They Make Me Run
  
  
• Moonlight Mile
  
  
• Mother’s Little Helper
  
  
• Shine a Light
  
  
• Sister Morphine
  
  
• Torn & Frayed

You may have heard one or two of them.

By the way, drug prohibition is the ultimate cause of most deaths associated with drug use, and that includes the overwhelming majority of abuse-related deaths. The price of virtue for bourgeois hypocrites is soaring rates of drug addiction among the world’s poor, and thousands of deaths annually.

reply to post by Astyanax

A clear opinion on the topic, thanks for that!

Curiously I was just loading a song that has your avatar in the video (I think I just saw it).

The controversial San Francisco by Scott McKenzie.

Some say he merely reflected the 1967 scene, and others say he killed it.

So many meanings to a very unassuming tune.

reply to post by halfoldman

Sadly, Sony Music Entertainment doesn’t want to show that video in my country for some reason.

My current avatar photo was taken by an ATS member outside the headquarters of Harold Camping, the failed doomsday prophet, on May 21.

reply to post by Astyanax

Pity...
I have to push the Watch on Youtube, or Youtube link, but then it goes straight to the clip on Youtube, and it's even better, because one can watch full-screen.

Apologies, I guess the switch from the clip to thread confused me somewhat.
I see now the 1967 sign in the McKenzie clip says: "The End is At Hand".
Definitely not the same.

Well, thanks for the post, and I hope there was some enjoyment from this thread.

Peter Tosh - Legalize it.
Comparing those visuals to the current debate is a little abstract?
Not necessarily: