Why did the Drug Culture Start up in the U.S.?

I would say the main causes were the Viet Nam war in specific and the Cold War in General. Without both these things going on at once and people my age being horrified by their friends being drafted one week and after basic training sent home in a casket in a week or two from Viet Nam. There was a level of rage to the point of people screaming, setting themselves on fire (literally) that I haven't seen in the U.S. before or since except when President Kennedy was assassinated and the Cuban Missile Crisis and (9-11). However, the horrors of the Viet Nam War went on from about 1955 (CIA) to 1974 or 1975 when Nixon left office. So, actually 4 or 5 presidents presided over the Viet Nam War in various stages of it, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and I think by the time Ford became president it was over.

But, it is very clear to me the main cause of the Drug Culture both among our draftee soldiers as well as college students, high school Students and the general population was the Viet Nam War and the Cold War. Both these events made people really crazy, especially when a loved one or friend came home in a pine box (50,000) or more and 250,000 wounded as well as countless walking wounded, some of whom still walk our cities streets nationwide or live remote in wilderness areas around the country isolated.

There was a drug culture among some musicians (mostly black that included marijuana and Heroin) mostly for at least 100 years or more before this. But, the cause of this was mostly racism and having to constantly live with being discriminated against so long.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and even into the 1960s I never even heard of marijuana mostly until about 1965 or 1966 and 1967 around then.

And LSD before the mid 1960s was being tried by ministers, politicians, College professors and rich business people until it was made illegal when people started to die from it when it went mainstream by the mid to late 1960s.

Most of the White culture of the U.S. was fairly innocent except for Alcohol and cigarettes throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. NO one even talked about any other stuff mostly. So, as a result people tended to be more sane (though boring) in the 1950s and early 1960s. So, life was much safer for children before the drug culture in a variety of ways. The main change NOW from the drug culture having existed so long is people trust each other so much less than they did in the 1950s and early 1960s which I think is tragic for our culture and tragic for children as well.