The Drug Culture of the 1970s

For readers in the twenty-first century, the casual drug use by the characters in The Mound Builders may seem surprising. Contrary to the stereotype today of drug users as primarily young, poor, and uneducated, the marijuana and mescaline users in the play are in their twenties and thirties, middle class, and highly educated. Dan, the heaviest drug user, has a doctoral degree and works for a major university. Jean is a medical doctor, who has a history of being a "drughead" but who has gone "cold turkey" for the duration of her pregnancy. These characters are not meant to be seen as perverse or unusual but as fairly typical young professionals for whom recreational drug use is nothing to hide. In fact, the period of the 1970s saw the highest rate of drug use in the nation's history.

Before the second world...