Oldies but goodies:

"Pot-smoking hippies" is no-doubt a pretty fair concept.  But to my mind, the more important drug was LSD.  In the beginning, it was a bit more like a sacrament, a ritual, an experiment about expanded consciousness described by John Lily and others.  My sense is that many of the folks who became so eco-conscious and involved in planetary health issues were influenced by it.  We are told that lysergic diethylamide changes the quality of the neuro-transmitter chemical packets passed between the dendrites of nerve cells.  But that doesn't tell you much about the ways in which your perceptions could change to actually see the organic nature of all life, and the increase awareness of the inter-connectedness of it all.  It's so easy to poke fun at it all now; I've had the discussions with straight people a thousand times.  And there was good acid (pure) and bad acid, "Hey, man, don't eat the brown acid; it's baaaad"  (corrupted with other chemicals)  -announced at Woodstock."

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/wendy_davis/2009/08/plea...

Godspeed, Owsley; you'll be flying high, and the wind will be at your back, methinks.

(Please don't ask me to wax poetic about the Dead's music, though; I once called into a fundraiser on the radio and said I'd send them a couple tenners to play something besides the Dead.  :o) 

But I think the Brotherhood made the sunshine barrels...I did have some the Bear handed me a few times, though.  Ay yi yi.