Prelude to Preludin

Abstract

This article describes the rise of the 1960s youth drug culture in Norway. By establishing a timeline of events, I detail how Norwegian patterns of drug use changed during the course of the decade. Two countries in particular influenced the development of a recreational drug scene in Oslo, Norway. First, the culture of marijuana smoking arrived in Norway from the United States in the early 1960s. In addition, the recreational use of amphetamine, and the knowledge of how to inject drugs, arrived from Sweden in the late 1960s. The rise of injecting drug use led to a schism in the emerging drug scene: The differences between the early marijuana users, who often came from middle-class backgrounds, and the injecting drug users, who were more likely to be of working-class origins, became more and more pronounced. It was under these conditions the increasingly punitive Norwegian drug policies arose.