Drug Use and Youth Consumption in West Germany During the 1960s

Abstract

This article examines the contested meanings of consumption and drug use in Germany during the 1960s. Arguing for an anthropological view of drug consumption, it investigates how youth drug use emerged during a period in which the meaning of consumption and consumerism were undergoing a fundamental change. In Germany during the 1960s, drug consumption was conceived of as part of a larger consumer revolution, both by youth protection advocates and youths themselves, although in a contradictory manner. While proponents of drug control saw drug use as the irrational outcome of rampant consumerism that threatened basic social values, young cultural radicals believed that certain forms of drug consumption could free individuals from the stifling conformity of enforced, coercive consumerism. The article argues that placing drug use in a special category away from “normal” consumerism obfuscates more than it clarifies and challenges scholars to understand drug consumption, consumers, and the production of meaning within specific historical and cultural contexts.