13. The Wizard of Oz is alleged by some to be an ode to psychedelic experimentation and drug use
Drug use was a commonplace activity in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, with drug prohibition only beginning in earnest with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, and during the writing of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” cocaine, opium, and morphine remained ordinary household products. As a result, it has been contended that Baum’s novel of 1900 is in fact littered with allusions towards the consumption of narcotics, particularly those possessing a psychedelic or hallucinatory component.
Dorothy’s journey into the Land of Oz, argued by some as “a common way to describe the effects [of hallucinogenics] to people who’ve never tried it”, is undeniably surreal on the surface. Furthermore, the Wicked Witch of the West places a field of poppies in the path of Dorothy and her friends, an alleged reference to opium, sending her into a deep sleep whilst not affecting the artificial Tin Man and Scarecrow who rescue Dorothy; in the 1939 film adaption, the connection to drug use is more overt, with Dorothy being awoken by Glinda the Good Witch sprinkling her with “snow” – a slang term for cocaine. Whether or not this interpretation of what Baum always claimed was a children’s fantasy story is accurate it was widely embraced by members of the counterculture during the 1960s, including by the organizer of the first “love-in”, Peter Bergman, hosting Radio Free Oz in which he played a psychedelic character called “the Wizard”.