Turn on, tune in, become the next Monet. You’ve certainly met them- those artsy-types who with all-knowing nods of their heads promote the mind-altering ability of certain substances to inspire creative genius, without all that hard work. But what, if any, connection exists between taking drugs and making art? Wanting to learn more, I combed the internet in search of any link between the two.

I often found drug advocates turned to rock stars like Graham Nash, who credited marijuana and cocaine with “unlocking my mind and my emotions, which had to be awakened for me to start writing meaningfully” as justification for their own indulgence in illicit substances. However, nearly all the musicians who survived their juiced-up youths stood by their decisions to get clean, refusing to make the concession that their art was dependent on the drugs they used. As David Bowie revealed, “The thing is so many people find it fashionable to say you couldn’t write those things if you weren’t on drugs and all that. I just doubt that’s the truth at all because some of the best things I wrote in [the 1970s] I had already cleaned up.” It soon became clear that many of the artists revered as examples of creativity’s blossoming under the influence of drugs only turned to substance abuse either in the initial thrill of fame or later in their careers as self-medication against its pressures, not as a means of producing their art.

Drug advocates also revered figures like Poe and Blake, claiming that by taking drugs they could induce the same madness that inspired these men’s masterworks in their own healthy minds. Aldous Huxley claimed that while tripping one can “actually be introduced into the kind of world that Van Gogh lived in, which [only] certain privileged people [can move] in and out of.” Yet The Scream artist Edvard Munch once said “My sufferings…are part of me and my art”, he and other truly mentally ill artists drawing their work from a lifetime of torment. Drug dissenters argue that such arduous personal journeys and similar artistic creations cannot be replicated in an 8-hour acid trip.

Following her experience with LSD, Anais Nin realized that this seemingly “unfamiliar world, inaccessible except to the chemical alterations of reality” induced by LSD was really comprised of images recalled “either in my work or in literary works by other writers… in reading, in memories of travel, in actual experience.”  She concluded that “the drugs, instead of bringing fertile images which in turn can be shared with the world… have instead become a solitary vice…It is like masturbation.” The passivity induced by drugs was commented on by Huxley too, who said “But I don’t think one can sit down and say, ‘I want to write a magnificent poem, and so I’m going to take [LSD]’…during the experience you’re really not interested in doing anything practical — even writing lyric poetry.” Even Timothy Leary, the man who coined the psychedelic mantra “turn on, tune in, drop out” was frustrated when his revolutionary declaration was misinterpreted as an excuse to “get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.”

In the end, it became clear that many of the figures substance-using creatives credited as their inspiration for taking drugs themselves realized that it was necessary to “graduate” from drugs to keep creating, George Harrison saying “when you get really hip, you don’t need it.” Instead, these artists found ways of expressing their creativity through their own voice, not the voices of drugs spoken through them, marking the firm distinction between their own creative capacities and the drugs they indulged in.

This article appeared in a condensed and edited version on BlogUT here.