involved a lot of interactions with the law .  Hippies of the times were known to be people that acted out in violence, were disruptive to the general public, and were often seen wearing barely any clothing.  These activities caused the police force to have to interact with the Hippies.  The Hippies believed in many different ideas.   Some of these ideas include the following: legal drug use, riots and peace marches, and public nudity.  These ideas are very controversial.  Many people believe that the Hippies of the 1960s were just displaying their own true identities and feelings.  On the other hand, some people found the Hippies repulsive.  

    The Hippies wanted drugs to be legalized.  

    Aldous Huxley said, "If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution-then, it seems to me, all our problems (not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise"(Drugs 1).

    This quotation shows how the Hippies saw drugs. They loved them. The Hippies believed that drugs brought them closer to their inner soul. They believed that drugs whether it was marijuana or crack would bring them closer to nature. The Hippies had "open-parties" where drugs were sold and given out.  If there was word that that a "plainclothesmen" was at the party, the drugs were taken before going to the party.  If no people at the party were suspicious, then the pills, pipes, and smells were out in the open for everyone to use for the night.  Today, most Americans believe that drugs are dangerous and should not be used, but millions of Americans of every levels of society use marijuana (Earisman 77). Studies have shown that levels of drug use will inevitably increase in the future. Thus, maybe the Hippies were not the only people consuming drugs during the 1960s.  Maybe the Hippies were the only ones expressing their feelings to the public.  As a result, many Hippies were jailed for their drug use.  A FBI report said that there was a ninety-eight percent increase in marijuana arrests from 1966-1968.  Today, laws prohibit the use of illegal drugs such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methanphetamines, and LSD.  Schools are teaching their students not to use drugs through a program called DARE.

    Because of the hippie's beliefs, they participated in riots and peace marches.  In August of 1968, the  Democratic Convention in Chicago saw demonstrations and police riots.  There were approximately ten thousand demonstrators vs. eleven thousand Chicago police, six thousand National Guard, seventy-five hundred U.S. army troops, and one thousand FBI, CIA & other services agents.  This riot was against Humphrey's nomination in support of the Vietnam War.  Hippies also burned draft cards.  Burning draft cards became illegal in 1965 due to this type of activity.

       The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969 drew more than 450,000 people to a pasture in Sullivan County. For four days, the site became a countercultural mini-nation in which minds were open, drugs were all but legal and love was "free". The music began Friday afternoon at 5:07 pm August 15 and continued until mid-morning Monday August 18. The festival closed the New York State Thruway and created one of the nation's worst traffic jams.   People who lived in the area of Woodstock had to put up with the Hippies in their yards.  People woke up to the smell of marijuana coming in their windows.   Gathered that weekend in 1969 were lovers, liars, prophets, and profiteers. They made love anywhere that they felt they wanted to.  They made money.  It has been said that the founders of Woodstock, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang, lied to New York City in the planning of the festival.

    The police force did not know what to do at Woodstock.  There were so many people that all they could really do was help people that needed assistance.  They could not arrest 500,000 for doing drugs because they had no place to put all of them.  After Woodstock, many local and state laws were enacted so that nothing like it would ever happen again.

    The Hippies believed in "baring it all."  Many Hippies of the 1960s wore very little clothing.   This enacted police interaction.  By law people must wear clothing.  The Hippies believed that they were being natural.  Those who were wearing clothing wore beads, tie-dye, bell-bottoms, and almost anything with flowers.