The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and taking it to the streets as drug-influenced literatureDrug-influenced art faces a unique challenge from the mainstream: demonstrate its legitimacy despite its "tainted" origins. Established judges of culture tend to despise drug-related art and artists, as if it were the drug and not the artist that created. This conflict, less intense but still present today, has its roots in the 1960s. As the Beatnik, Hippie, and psychedelic movements gained increasing nationwide attention, the influence of drugs on culture could no longer be ignored by the mainstream. In an era where once-prolific drugs like marijuana and cocaine had become prohibited and sensationalized, the renewed influence of drugs, both old and new, sent shockwaves through grassroots culture. The instinctive response of most non-drug addicts has simply been to consider drug-influenced art to be little more than the ravings of madmen. Some drug-influenced artists have tried to ignore this preconception, while others have tried to downplay their drug use in the face of negative public scrutiny. For some drug-influenced artists, however, it was imperative to gain popular acceptance by publicly challenging the perceptions and preconceptions of mainstream America. mistrust of youth culture in general and drug culture in particular. Citing federal and FCC rules prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene, indecent, or profane material," the author of this article seems absolutely scandalized by the growing presence of double entenders in popular music. Here, amidst the mumbling... amidst the paper... suspended dramatically since the dawn of the 1960s, granting a sort of semi-legitimacy to drug-influenced art that grows louder and less self-aware every year . This pervasiveness of drug imagery in our culture today is no accident: it is the result of these artists introducing drugs into popular consciousness. The lingering effects of their efforts to publicize and poeticize their altered mental states can easily be seen in the dominant culture of America today, which possesses both awareness and grudging respect for the drug experience. Works and sources cited Allen, Donald. The new American poetry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960. Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines. Taking it to the street. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Bantam Books, 1968.