Cannabis
Some members of The Beatles were first offered cannabis in 1960, following their first trip to Hamburg. However, they remained unimpressed with the effects.
We first got marijuana from an older drummer with another group in Liverpool. We didn't actually try it until after we'd been to Hamburg. I remember we smoked it in the band room in a gig in Southport and we all learnt to do the Twist that night, which was popular at the time. We were all seeing if we could do it. Everybody was saying, 'This stuff isn't doing anything.' It was like that old joke where a party is going on and two hippies are up floating on the ceiling, and one is saying to the other, 'This stuff doesn't work, man.'
Anthology
The DJ at Liverpool's Cavern Club, Bob Wooler, claimed that The Beatles were occasional users of the drug when they started to play outside the city.
We didn't have a strong drug scene by any means. Originally, it was just purple hearts, amphetamines, speed or whatever you want to call it. When The Beatles went down south, they sometimes brought back cannabis and gradually the drug scene developed in Liverpool.
The Cavern, Spencer Leigh
An early encounter with the drug took place on 1 January 1962, prior to their unsuccessful audition for Decca. As they travelled from Liverpool to London on New Year's Day, The Beatles' endured a 10-hour drive through snowstorms.
Upon arriving in London, their driver Neil Aspinall became lost, and a pair of seedy men attempted to talk their way into the group's van as a safe haven for smoking cannabis. At the time the drug was unknown to The Beatles, and still a little-used substance in mainstream society.
It is well-known that Bob Dylan fully turned The Beatles on to cannabis. On 28 August 1964 they were introduced by a mutual friend, the writer Al Aronowitz, at New York's Delmonico Hotel. Upon arriving at The Beatles' suite that evening, Dylan asked for cheap wine; Mal Evans was sent to get some, and during the wait Dylan suggested they have a smoke.
Brian and the Beatles looked at each other apprehensively. "We've never smoked marijuana before," Brian finally admitted. Dylan looked disbelievingly from face to face. "But what about your song?" he asked. The one about getting high?"The Beatles were stupefied. "Which song?" John managed to ask.
Dylan said, "You know..." and then he sang, "and when I touch you I get high, I get high..."John flushed with embarrassment. "Those aren't the words," he admitted. "The words are, 'I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide...'"
Peter Brown
After the room was secured, Dylan rolled the first joint and passed it to Lennon. He immediately gave it to Ringo Starr, whom he called "my royal taster". Not realising the etiquette was to pass it on, Starr finished the joint and Dylan and Aronowitz rolled more for each of them.
The Beatles spent the next few hours in hilarity, looked upon with amusement by Dylan. Brian Epstein kept saying, "I'm so high I'm on the ceiling. I'm up on the ceiling."
Paul McCartney, meanwhile, was struck by the profundity of the occasion, telling anyone who would listen that he was "thinking for the first time, really thinking." He instructed Mal Evans to follow him around the hotel suite with a notebook, writing down everything he said:
I remember asking Mal, our road manager, for what seemed like years and years, 'Have you got a pencil?' But of course everyone was so stoned they couldn't produce a pencil, let alone a combination of pencil and paper.I'd been going through this thing of levels, during the evening. And at each level I'd meet all these people again. 'Hahaha! It's you!' And then I'd metamorphose on to another level. Anyway, Mal gave me this little slip of paper in the morning, and written on it was, 'There are seven levels!' Actually it wasn't bad. Not bad for an amateur. And we pissed ourselves laughing. I mean, 'What the fuck's that? What the fuck are the seven levels?' But looking back, it's actually a pretty succinct comment; it ties in with a lot of major religions but I didn't know that then.
Evans kept the notebooks until his death in 1976, when they were confiscated and later lost by Los Angeles police.
By the time they came to make Help! in 1965, The Beatles' cannabis use had reached a peak. It affected their songwriting, which became mellower and more introspective. During the filming of Help! they were often stoned on set, which caused them to forget their lines.
The Beatles had gone beyond comprehension. We were smoking marijuana for breakfast. We were well into marijuana and nobody could communicate with us, because we were just glazed eyes, giggling all the time.
In 1970 Lennon claimed the group had smoked cannabis in the toilet of Buckingham Palace, on the day they collected their MBEs. In later years, however, George Harrison revealed it had been nothing stronger than a normal cigarette.
Cannabis had a significant effect on The Beatles' music. It found its way into a number of songs, including Got To Get You Into My Life (described by McCartney as "an ode to pot") and With A Little Help From My Friends, which was condemned in some quarters due to its reference to getting high. Perhaps the first reference, however, was in She's A Woman, which featured the line "Turns me on when I get lonely".
On 24 July 1967 The Beatles and Brian Epstein added their names to an advertisement which appeared in the Times newspaper calling for the legalisation of cannabis. Sponsored by a group called Soma, the advertisement also demanded the release of all people imprisoned due to cannabis possession, and further research into the drug's medical uses.
On 18 October 1968 John Lennon and Yoko Ono were arrested for cannabis possession while staying at Ringo Starr's basement flat at 34 Montagu Square, London. He pleaded guilty on 28 November, absolving Ono, who was pregnant at the time.
The following year, on 12 March 1969, George and Pattie Harrison were similarly arrested for possession. Like Lennon and Ono, the Harrisons maintained that the drugs had been planted by London's drugs squad, led by Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, a notoriously anti-drug zealot.
Well done. Fascinating.
Great article. However, Paul is well known as a pothead - or at least he used to be. I'd be curious to read a bit more on that...
I can't help giggling - sorry...
I have TREMENDOUS respect for Paul moreso than the rest of the Beatles, I have to say. And yet, you are probably correct. He WAS indeed fond of the Weed, and even known to publicly defend it as he (claims that he) was able to control the effects of the weed and never really experienced withdrawal associated with its disuse.
And to be fair, it was probably true for Paul. He might have indeed been proud of the fact that he could use Marijuana at will, and not missing it nor having any withdrawals when he didn't.
Pothead and Proud of it? Or should we make it Proud Pothead Paul...? ::giggles::
That doesn't diminish my great admiration of the man - HONEST!
Nobody ever has withdrawal when they stop smoking pot man. I do it all the time, and so does everyone else who smokes. I doubt Paul was unintelligent enough to think that weed was addictive, when he clearly realized other drugs, such as heroin, are the ones that lead you down the wrong path.
The point is, everyone knows grass is docile and harmless, including Paul, and if someone smoking pot has a chance of diminishing your image of someone, you are simply ignorant.
Not true. I smoked weed 3 times a day for 6 months. Had constant anxiety and paranoia, and symptoms of schizophrenia emerge. I was high 24/7, I didn't care about anything anymore, life felt meaningless, and I would get stuck in my head with these long inner monologues. I felt like every day was a fight to keep my consciousness from dissolving. And even when I quit cold turkey, I had wicked bad withdrawals. I craved it as much as it tortured me.
I don't think cannabis is entirely bad or good. I just think it's really ignorant to claim that it's great for everyone, or not great for everyone. It effects everyone differently. And it is possible to have terrible trips on weed and withdrawals. I think people with already thin boundaries of self and delicately formed egos can't handle something that really puts your mind to the test.
Very sensible. For me, it's penicilin; that stuff almost killed me three times, but neither I nor my doctor realized it. Marijuana I like. And I don't think you can get addicted to it--not in the same way as alcohol, tobacco, heroin, barbituates, cocaine, speed, caffeine, sugar, television, sex, power, or chocolate. Marijuana: I can smoke it or leave it alone. I'd rather smoke it, and I did off and on--mostly on--for 32 years, but I finally got so fed up with having to be a criminal, and hassle to find it and afford it WHEN IT IS A WEED THAT CAN GROW FOR FREE!, that I just gave it up. Someday, I profoundly hope, the power-addicted people will get the hell out of the way, and leave people alone, and then I'll smoke it legally. Hurry the day.
My understanding is that John's heroin addiction continued on and off into the mid seventies. Can't site my source, just remember hearing/reading this many times.
Anyone else ever this?
I believe Yoko has said they had four separate periods on heroin. She also said the hardest to kick was methadone, which they'd heard was like heroin but non-addictive. So they started taking it, not as a substitute to heroin, as they weren't addicts at the time. After finally kicking that she said they never became addicted to anything again.
I too heard this - far from baking bread and being a househusband (as told to Andy Peebles Dec 1980), don't ask me where, but at LEAST two, maybe three sources have John hanging out with Uncle Henry, and especially heavily during the period when Jack Daniels and Harry Nilsson were his other constant companions.
Personally, when I first became acquainted with Henry, it was mid-70s and greyish-white, water soluble, very strong stuff from Thailand, with the brandname "Double Globe" on every compressed slab wrapped in clear plastic with red printing, each a little more than 250g. From 1981, all that could be had in UK was this brown, adulterated, much weaker stuff from Afghanistan, paid for by the CIA & US Govt; a result of their allies like Osama bin Laden maximising the millions given to them to aid their anti-Soviet campaign.
I had developed a reaction to cannabis which made it unpleasant and often frightening. And just as I was thoroughly enjoying the best H made, this USA funded Afghan brown arrived, and has been with us ever since. I pray for the day I find a containerload of Double Globe (which is still, even post- Khun Sa, still available, grown and processed by the same hill tribes.
Heroin is benign. It does no damage to the body and vital organs, unlike any other social relaxant. It clears my mind and aids my thinking; other drugs screw it up. Fraser was correct in that the only real problem is running out when you have a habit on. Great for physical and emotional pain, it is obvious to me that John would be the most likely Beatle to indulge. And "Cold Turkey" (whilst being the worst way possible to break a habit) SOUNDS LIKE IT FEELS!! That painful descending riff tells the eight-day horror story perfectly.
that's how I remember it as well. And this went into the mid-seventies.
I often wondered if this was partly behind the 18 month separation - they had to get away from each other in order to get clean.
Interesting how all four ex-Beatles had their own preferences, drugwise: Paul liked weed, booze for Ringo, heroin for John and apparently George was quite fond of coke for a time, something I only learned recently and found somewhat surprising.
(Fun druggie nicknames/memory aids: Pothead Paul, Junkie John, Rummy Ringo, and I can't think of one for George.)
::giggles::
I LOVE your druggie nickname! I'd make it Proud Pothead Paul - since he was known to defend the use of the substance and throughout the 80s he constantly maintained that he could use and discontinue using at will, with no effect nor withdrawals whatsoever.
Potheaded - and Proud of it. ::giggles::
Absolutely awesome article. A few spelling mistakes, but still very good. Some great quotes in it. I think that one of George's saying that its all about your acceptance of the world really struck me. Like really struck me.
But bloody good article.
Could you please let me know where the spelling mistakes are? This site is written in UK English, incidentally.
Don't take it personally - the American English writers don't even agree on some spelling conventions on our own at times.
GREAT article, Man!
This is a fascinating intro into their experiences with drug abuse. I was suprised to hear how a doctor actually helped Paul use Benzedrine. Its interesting to see the parallel's with today's society since parents also get caught providing their kids with drugs and alcohol.
Is there any information out their regarding Paul's first LSD trip with Tara Browne? I can't imagine it to have been good if he never really got back into it.
Interesting article though maybe it has too few sources albiet impeccible ones. People can get addicted to water let alone pot. That said pot is one of the least harmful things you can take including cigarettes and booze. While I do think people can abuse it, it in itself is a farily docile drug.
Wow probably the longest article about Beatles in this site is about... drugs?
DD
What about George's cocaine addiction in the 70s?
As someone who prefers their early albums and believes that they peaked at A Hard Day's Night soundtrack this is very interesting information. I knew a good deal of this history but now I feel much better educated. I love many types of music but the genres I know best and hold dearest are 70's British punk and 50's rock n roll. That being said, it's easy to picture why I would prefer a band on uppers as opposed to a band on psychedelics or downers. Best option of course is to avoid the lot of em altogether.