The advertisement of 24 July 1967
On 24 July 1967 a full-page advertisement appeared in The Times of London under the headline “The law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice”. It was paid for by a small group called the Soma Research Association, linked to the researcher Steve Abrams, and it was signed by around sixty people. The signatories included all four Beatles, their manager Brian Epstein, and a number of doctors, writers, artists and other public figures, among them, reportedly, the author Graham Greene and the psychiatrist R. D. Laing. Some members of parliament also signed.
The text called for several changes: that the government allow the smoking of cannabis on private premises, that cannabis be removed from the category of dangerous drugs and be the subject of research, and that people imprisoned for possessing small amounts be released. It was framed as a matter of civil liberty and scientific enquiry, not as encouragement.
Why it appeared then
The advertisement came a few weeks after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones were convicted on drug charges in June 1967 and received prison sentences that many observers thought harsh. On 1 July, The Times itself published an editorial by its editor William Rees-Mogg headed “Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?”, which questioned the severity of the punishment. Jagger’s and Richards’s sentences were overturned or reduced on appeal at the end of July. The advertisement belonged to that atmosphere of debate about how far the law should go in policing the habits of young people.
It also followed a public admission by Paul McCartney, in June, that he had taken LSD, which he made in an interview and later discussed on television. He said he did not wish to encourage others. The statement increased press attention on the group’s private lives at a time when many young listeners were treating them as guides.
The turn toward meditation
In late August 1967 the Beatles attended a lecture in London by the Indian teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who taught Transcendental Meditation, and then travelled with him to Bangor in North Wales for a short course. George Harrison had been interested in Indian religion and music for some time, and the others followed his lead with varying enthusiasm. Their trip was cut short when they learned that Epstein had died on 27 August. Reportedly the Maharishi advised them not to give way to grief, a comment that some of the group remembered as helpful and others as less so.
The group’s association with the Maharishi continued into early 1968, when they stayed at his ashram in India, an episode that belongs to a later chapter. At the time it was widely read as part of a larger fashion for Eastern spirituality, in which religion and the counterculture met.
Public reaction
Responses were divided. Supporters of reform welcomed the advertisement as a serious intervention by well-known people. Many newspapers treated it as a story about celebrity rather than argument, and conservative commentators, church figures and some older readers criticised the signatories for what they saw as setting a bad example. The Beatles’ fans were mainly young, and some people worried about the influence of public figures who spoke approvingly of drugs. At the same time, other signatories were established professionals whose names could not be dismissed as the opinion of pop stars.
The immediate effect on the law was limited. The government commissioned its own inquiry, and a subcommittee of an advisory body led by Baroness Wootton produced a report in 1968 that argued the dangers of cannabis had been overstated and suggested lighter penalties, but its recommendations were not adopted in full. Cannabis remained illegal in Britain, and the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 kept it controlled.
A year of changing law and attitudes
The advertisement was one of several signs in 1967 that British social rules were being reconsidered. Parliament passed the Sexual Offences Act and the Abortion Act that year, both after long debate. The Beatles were not responsible for those changes, but their willingness to attach their names to a cause showed how far pop musicians had moved from entertainers to public commentators.
Their stance was also an example of the official reaction to hippies and young people in general: curiosity, disapproval and an uncertain legal response at the same time. The band’s enthusiasm for new ideas continued in the studio and on film, even as the events of August removed the figure who had managed their affairs.