For those unfamiliar with the term or do not watch network news specials about youth subcultures geared to paranoid 40 year olds, Molly is the powdered form of MDMA, also known as ecstasy. Molly commonly comes in little dimebags or in capsules, and is frequently mixed with other drugs like cocaine. Its popularity, along with the previous fame of bath salts and Four Loko, paint a very interesting picture of drug use today. I think what is happening is that we are having a resurgence of the 60s and we are at the tail end of that decade. You can split the 60s into two halves, with each half having very distinct features. The first half was all about peace, love, and consciousness expansion and so predictably the big drugs were pot, acid, and uppers. The second half, when the political climate grew sour with all of the assignations and things in America become so violent, the drug culture took a shift. Uppers were out, and drug use became less about finding happiness and more about what Hunter S. Thompson called “shortcircuiting our brain.” It was heroin, barbiturates, pot sprayed with every chemical known to man, mescaline and speed. Most importantly, this is when mixing drugs became prevalent. Keep in mind that mixing drugs does not necessarily make one feel more euphoric. It’s all about destruction of self at that point: you want to fry your senses, you want to get annihilated the same way you do at a kegger after a bad breakup.

For this reason, I believe we are in the second half of that 60’s resurgence. A few years ago we chanted YES WE CAN and now we bemoan the job market. Politics are getting ugly, and economy is bad, and since this country is moving forward in terms of gender rights, gay marriage, legalization of pot, and others, there is tension between the old and the new, religious and non religious, and liberals and conservatives. Movies are all 3D reboots, the internet is a great place for creativity but it’s also giving a voice to idiots. Everything is commercial. For brevity’s sake let’s say that there is just too much stuff going on.

I wrote in my article about our fascination with the apocalypse in that we fantasize about the end of the world because such a scenario would free us from annoyances that we feel rob us of your happiness and have no place in the modern world, such as the drinking age. And no one, in this current climate, is trying to breaking free from those irritations, trying to shortcircuit themselves faster from the present, trying to rebel against their own lives, than white people.

Whites in America have always been a little nuts. And nowhere is it clearer than in how we drink and do drugs. We do not chill out, and we don’t really try to open our minds. Like the latter half of the 60’s, we are getting destroyed. When historians look back on the drug culture of these past couple years, they will cite Molly as a perfect example of how white people do drugs. Molly is not a drug; it’s a drug cocktail. MDMA is pure ecstasy yet no drug someone buys is every truly pure, and that’s ok because we prefer to mix it. Pot is so tooled around with and you can’t call it pot anymore. Molly is cut with everything from speed to bath salts and I think that’s partly why it’s so popular. White people want whatever is the most tainted, even the most dangerous, to be in their body. It’s the same reason why we dominate amusement parks and skydiving lessons. It’s why we drive too fast. It’s why almost every Fail video on Youtube is a white guy. It’s why we do keg stands and pot gasmasks. It’s why speedballs (heroin and cocaine mixed together) killed the lead singers of both Alice in Chains and Sublime. White people generally have more money, rights, and opportunities, and as a result we abuse it. We don’t have a battle to fight so we create one in our veins. We see the anger and political strife circle around us and it just pumps us up. We don’t want to relax or find some equilibrium with the world, we want to escape it, or fight against it, by breaking laws, breaking limbs, and mixing drugs.

The main point I am making is that Molly is the poster child for white drug culture. It is something to keep an eye on, not just because of how dangerous it is (although alcohol is arguably worse in the long term) but because it is how the drug culture is going to look for the new few years if not longer. Until the economy improves, until politics stops being a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, until things get a bit happier and less ugly, than drugs like Molly are here to stay. History repeats itself, and one of the good things about all the fighting in the 60’s is that it ushered a new generation. All the cards were down, and everyone showed their true colors. Everyone’s voice was heard, and you could physically see people argue and fight for their beliefs about where the country was going. These wars, so to speak, are necessary. They get stuff done. 60’s granted people rights and gave us the 70’s which was one of the coolest decades ever. The 70’s was like the victory lap for the 60’s struggle. We are in the late 60’s right now. That victory is out there somewhere. More laws to preserve equality, smarter laws to legalize certain things, decriminalization of other laws that shouldn’t even be around. These things are getting done, even if it’s a slow process.
So if you look around and see all the stress, the anger, the bigotry and the tension, remember that this all happened before. So Molly is here to stay for a while, and so is this current environment, but with history as a guide, it could bring us to the new 70’s: a decade where white people weren’t trying to fry their brains too much and where we could, in very general terms, celebrate a little bit. It’s very possible, and I am optimistic, yet the next challenge will be to prevent the 80’s from happening again.