Don't do drugs, kids. Apparently, that is a memo that the characters in this novel missed, but that's exactly what What Now My Love is really about. One shouldn't view the characters from the educated perspective of the present, where we can all search for information on the internet. These characters are trapped in 1969, with only the information about drugs that is provided through the limited, broken, propagandizing information from government institutions.
That means that this culture is a counter-culture, because it is the real effect of systemic injustice. Because the USA has a history of making drugs legal or illegal for unfounded reasons, an entire generation of people (the hippies) were left to figure things out for themselves, on the street, in real time. That's really difficult to do without the internet, and when everyone around the characters is encouraging them to be experimental and rebellious.
But what's the big deal anyway? Well, for one thing, this chronic misinformation and peer pressure leads them to go to Mexico and explore the Mexican underground. That is a mistake, because San Francisco's underground is all hip and swanky, but in Mexico, there are crime lords and pimps and gangsters, and the characters don't speak Spanish. In other words, they were naïve, and they waltzed right into a potentially traumatic, life-threatening situation, for almost no reason at all—just to do it.
