August 23, 1967, Reprise Records released an album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience called Are You Experienced?. The third track on this album (not to be confused with the 1997 reissue) was “Purple Haze”.

Back in the day, "Purple Haze" was LSD, not marijuana. Oh, sure, now we talk about strains of marijuana as "haze", but not in 1967.

Don’t believe me? What if I told you I was actually alive, and living in California then? (Well, I was in the second grade at the time. The closest I ever got to the Summer of Love was going to Fisherman's Wharf in the City with my parents, and tugging on my crew-cut father's sleeve, saying, "Look, Dad, hippies!" But that's probably closer than you, gentle reader.)

Would you believe the White House “Office of National Drug Control Policy”? 1 That's O.K. I wouldn’t believe them either. Would you believe the “What you need to know About ...” website? 2 Hmm. This is the same drug slang database, but with banner ads. How about the DEA? 3 Hey look, the guys at Justice actually cite their source:

Robert O’Brien, et al., The Encyclopedia of Drug Abuse, Second Edition, 1992, Facts on File and Greenspring, Inc., pp. 173, 358.

Betcha didn’t know there was an Encyclopedia, didja? No, I'm not impressed, either.

Would you believe an old High Times article from January 1977, by Bruce Eisner? 4 Eisner purports to have actually interviewed Tim Scully, one of the miscreants involved in creating the stuff. Here’s the scoop: Augustus Owsley Stanley III, began to manufacture LSD in Los Angeles in 1965. It was legal then. According to Eisner, Owsley’s LSD came in 270 microgram tablets of purple (Purple Haze) and white (White Lightning). LSD became illegal in 1966 and Owsley was arrested in 1967.


1“Drug Facts”: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/streetterms/ByType.asp?intTypeID=6.

2 http://parentingteens.about.com/library/fs/blsldiclsd.htm.

3 http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/lsd/lsd-9.htm.

4 http://www.island.org/docs/purity.shtml