Seated on a blanket in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Kenny describes how the park has changed during his ten year absence spent growing weed in the California wilderness. “The hippy kids used to be able to sell their weed real easy at high prices,” he tells us. “There were lots of customers and they made enough in a few days to travel for a few weeks. Now though...” At which point Kenny repeats the complaint made by drug dealers throughout the park, that California’s legal dispensaries for “medical marijuana” have depressed prices and stolen away their customer base.
We spoke with Kenny in February as we reported on the street kids of San Francisco, the homeless youths who live and congregate in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The area’s status as a gathering place for young homeless is a legacy of the Summer of Love, the crest of the hippy movement that drew some hundred thousand flower children to smoke, make music, and live communally in Golden Gate Park in 1967.
Many are homeless by choice: Some are the transient underemployed or unemployed that hop railcars across the country. Others represent the remnants of the hippy movement, flitting between San Francisco, weed farms, wilderness, and music festivals. A few are well off kids acting out a Jack Kerouac novel for a few weeks."
