Drug Charticle

By Charlie Peppers

Psychedelic zombies, better known as “flower children,” spring to life in Giltz Auditorium. Clad in dead fashion trends, these zombies curl around the aisles and flank audience members. Twisting and swerving, their surprisingly nimble bodies move in what could be misread as gestures of a dark ritual. All migrate to the stage, a temporary bone yard. However, no audience member’s brain is being inhaled through a voodoo bong. The zombies are simply belting lyrics about their precious era: the Age of Aquarius. The zombies are here to rock.

The zombies are SUNY Plattsburgh students, byproduct of the theater program.

Christian Amato, 21, chose to breathe life into Hair, a musical encapsulating the rebellion of “flower children.” He said he originally thought it would be “great for students, especially freshmen, to have a musical waiting for them, to kick off the year.”

“It’s such a high energy show,” Amato said. “It’s also the 40th anniversary of Wood Stock. It had to be Hair.”

Although Amato has performed “musical CPR” on Hair, the characters in the show use drugs more frequently than they sing and dance. The fictionalized characters are mostly American teenagers, experiencing the Vietnam War through the lens of indifference. Amato suggested drugs were an outlet for the characters’ unwavering energy.

Unsurprisingly, the counter-culture of drugs left a deep impression on future generations and the college scene.

Dr. Olivia O’Donnell, professor in the political science department, gives her two cents on the role different drugs played in the Age of Aquarius and ultimately the 2000s.

LSD

“The use of LSD and Marijuana (was big in the late 1960s). It became a mind-expanding drug. It was used as a drug to treat psychosis and mental health. It became part of the psychedelic era. There was this notion that dropping acid would alter your mind, see things you normally wouldn’t.

Marijuana

“At the same time there was a move to legalize marijuana. Marijuana wasn’t addictive as tobacco was. It became life blood of the hippie movement, the anti-war movement. Students still use it now.”