Editing Grunge (section)

==Alcohol and drugs==
[[File:BleachYour Works.png|thumb|left|alt=A poster encouraging injection drug users to use bleach to clean their syringes and needles.|The title of Nirvana's debut album ''[[Bleach (Nirvana album)|Bleach]]'' referred to the 1980s-era public health posters which urged heroin injectors to use [[bleach]] to clean their needles, to prevent [[AIDS]] transmission.]]
Many music subcultures are associated with particular drugs, such as the [[hippie]] [[counterculture]] and [[reggae]], both of which are associated with [[marijuana]] and psychedelics. In the 1990s, the media focused on the use of heroin by musicians in the Seattle grunge scene, with a 1992 ''New York Times'' article listing the city's "three principal drugs" as "[[espresso]], beer and heroin"<ref name="Marin" /> and a 1996 article calling Seattle's grunge scene the "... subculture that has most strongly embraced heroin".<ref name="heroin">{{cite web |url=http://www.furious.com/perfect/heroin.html |title='Rock 'n' Horse: Rock's Heroin Connection |last=Dasein |first=Deena |date=December 1996 |publisher=Perfect Sound Forever |access-date=January 29, 2017 }}</ref> [[Tim Jonze]] from ''The Guardian'' states that "... heroin had blighted the [grunge] scene ever since its inception in the mid-80s" and he argues that the "... involvement of heroin mirrors the self-hating, [[Nihilism|nihilistic]] aspect to the music"; in addition to the heroin deaths, Jonze points out that [[Stone Temple Pilots]]' [[Scott Weiland]], as well as [[Courtney Love]], [[Mark Lanegan]], [[Jimmy Chamberlin]] and [[Evan Dando]] "... all had their run-ins with the drug, but lived to tell the tale."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/mar/10/deadliest-music-genre-grunge-mike-starr |title=Mike Starr and the deadliest musical genre Another grunge star has died young. Tim Jonze asks: is it the most lethal genre?|last=Jonze|first=Tim|date=March 10, 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=February 6, 2017 }}</ref> A 2014 book stated that whereas in the 1980s, people used the "stimulant" [[cocaine]] to socialize and "... celebrate good times", in the 1990s grunge scene, the "depressant" heroin was used to "retreat" into a "cocoon" and be "... sheltered from a harsh and unforgiving world which offered ... few prospects for ... change or hope."<ref name="Marion p. 888">Marion, Nancy E and Oliver, Willard M. ''Drugs in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture. and the Law''. ABC-CLIO, 2014 . p. 888.</ref> Justin Henderson states that all of the "downer" opiates, including "heroin, [[morphine]], [[etorphine]], [[codeine]], [[opium]], [and] [[hydrocodone]] ... seemed to be the habit of choice for many a grunger".<ref name="auto">Henderson, Justin. ''Grunge: Seattle''. Roaring Forties Press, 2016. Ch. 5 "the really big time", section: "here come the tabloids!"</ref>

The title of Nirvana's debut album ''[[Bleach (Nirvana album)|Bleach]]'' was inspired by a [[harm reduction]] poster aimed at heroin injection users, which stated "Bleach your works [e.g., [[syringe]] and [[Hypodermic needle|needle]]] before you get stoned". The poster was released by the U.S. State Health Department which was trying to reduce [[AIDS]] transmission caused through sharing used needles. Alice in Chains' song "God Smack" includes the line "stick your arm for some real fun", a reference to injecting heroin.<ref name=heroin /> Seattle musicians known to use heroin included Cobain, who was using "heroin when he shot himself in the head"; "[[Andrew Wood (singer)|Andrew Wood]] of [[Mother Love Bone]] [who] overdosed on heroin in 1990"; "[[Stefanie Sargent]] of [[7 Year Bitch]] [who] died of an overdose of the same opiate in 1992 ... [and] [[Layne Staley]] of Alice in Chains [who] publicly detailed his battles with heroin ...".<ref name=seattletimes>{{cite news |url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19940420/1906421/seattle-scene-and-heroin-use-how-bad-is-it |title='Seattle Scene' And Heroin Use: How Bad Is It? |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=April 20, 1994 |newspaper=The Seattle Times |access-date=January 29, 2017 |archive-date=July 19, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719201032/http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940420&slug=1906421 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Mike Starr (musician)|Mike Starr]] of Alice in Chains<ref name="Marion p. 888" />  and [[Jonathan Melvoin]] from [[the Smashing Pumpkins]] also died from heroin. After Cobain's death, his "... widow, singer Courtney Love, characterized Seattle as a drug mecca, where heroin is easier to get than in San Francisco or Los Angeles."<ref name=seattletimes />

However, [[Daniel House (musician)|Daniel House]], who owned [[C/Z Records]], disputed these perceptions in 1994. House stated that there was "... no more (heroin) here [in Seattle] than anyplace else"; he stated that the "heroin is not a big part of the [Seattle music] culture", and that "marijuana and alcohol ... are far more prevalent". Jeff Gilbert, one of the editors of ''Guitar World'' magazine, stated in 1994 that the media association of the Seattle grunge scene with heroin was "really overblown"; instead, he says that Seattle musicians were "... all a bunch of potheads."<ref name=seattletimes /> Gil Troy's history of America in the 1990s states that in the Seattle grunge scene, the "... drug of choice switched from upscale cocaine [of the 1980s] to blue-collar marijuana."<ref>Troy, Gil. ''The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s''.Macmillan, 2015. p. 105</ref> ''Rolling Stone'' magazine reported that members of Seattle's grunge scene were "coffee-crazed" by day on espresso and "... by night, they quaff[ed] oceans of beer – jolted by Java and looped with liquor, no wonder the [grunge] music sounds like it does."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/grunge-city-the-seattle-scene-19920416 |title=Grunge City: The Seattle Scene |author=Azzerad, Michael |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |date=April 16, 1992 }}</ref> "Some [Seattle] scene veterans maintain that [[3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine|MDA]]", a drug related to [[MDMA|Ecstasy]], "was a vital contributor to grunge", because it gave users a "body high" (in contrast to marijuana's "head high") that made them appreciate "bass-heavy [[Groove (music)|grooves]]".<ref>SPIN. Apr 2004 – Page 65. Vol. 20, No. 4</ref> Pat Long's '' History of the NME'' states that scene members involved with the Sub Pop label would have multi-day MDMA parties in the woods, which shows that what Long calls Ecstasy's "warm glow" had an impact even in the wet, grey and isolated Pacific Northwest region.<ref>Long, Pat. ''The History of the NME: High times and low lives at the world's most famous music magazine''. Pavilion Books, 2012.</ref>