Acid Hype: American News Media and the Psychedelic Experience

Stephen Siff's Acid Hype argues that the American media, not just countercultural figures or mental health professionals, played a crucial role in spreading knowledge about LSD and promoting its recreational use. By informing a broad cross section of the country about the existence and desirability of the psychedelic experience, news reporting—whether critical, neutral, or praiseful—helped diffuse recreational LSD use. The thesis is not new, but Siff provides enough sources to add considerable weight to the claim.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In the popular imagination lsd (lysergic acid diethylamide) was introduced to the American public by radical figures such as Timothy Leary or Ken Kesey as part of the countercultural rebellion of the 1960s. Scholars have also written about the part played by mental health professionals and various government agencies in spreading knowledge about the psychedelic experience to certain sectors of the general population in the 1950s and 1960s. Stephen Siff's Acid Hype shines a revealing light on the extensive role played by the media in this history. Whether the news coverage was critical, neutral, or praiseful, Siff ultimately concludes that simply “by informing a broad cross section of the country of the existence and desirability of the psychedelic experience, news reporting on the subject played an important role in the diffusion of the recreational use of lsd” (p. 179). This is hardly a new thesis, but Siff reveals enough sources to add considerable weight to the claim.