Music Festivals are not just about the music; it’s all about the atmosphere to me. In fact music comes second when deciding where to go.

I’m looking at going to the Latitude Festival on the Suffolk Coastline. No bands have even been announced yet but that is not important. It’s the feeling and the vibe of the event that is most important to me. And the vibe of Latitude in recent years has been proven to be one of the best around!

Not only a music festival, Latitude is also a celebration of literature and performance, with stages dedicated to poetry reading, theatre, comedy and burlesque to name but a few.

I’m looking forward to cracking open a packet of Giggles and heading down to the comedy stage. Having previously played host to Rich Hall, Richard Herring, Stephen K Amos, Dave Gorman and Sean Lock to name but a few, I feel that having an enhancement such as a Giggle or two would make for an extra special night!

Then of course the music itself. I wish I had caught Nigel Kennedy last year. Roling up a joint or two of Blast Off and listening to his rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons whilst watching the sun set over a lake would have been a magical experience.

Of course there is the bonus of just being in such a beautiful place as the Suffolk countryside. Tucked away amongst the trees, dancing as the sun goes down over he most beautiful skies known to man.

Yup. My mind has been made up. Latitude it is for me this year.

However, while there are drug references all over cinema, some of my absolute favourite moments are actually from children’s films and TV. One thing that every one of these films/clips have in common is that I saw them as a child and in some way they traumatised me. But isn’t that the mark of a good piece of TV?!

5. Alice in Wonderland

Honestly, it’s hard to think of a single moment from this film which isn’t drug inspired. OK, I know that there is no evidence to show that Lewis Carroll so much as even abused aspirin, but the references and alegories are certainly here for all to see, especially in the Disney film version. A Catepillar smoking a Hookah pipe? State altering mushrooms? Not to metion the sheer volumes of psychedelic colour used.

In this clip Alice talks to the flowers after she has been shrunk, and they sing to her. The colours and imagery used are simply stunning, and wouldn’t look out of place during a mushroom trip of your own!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA1QJMtJ6_A&feature=related

4. Pink Elephants on Parade

OK, so it may not be a drug reference as such, (alcohol’s not a drug, it’s a drink. Thank you Chris Morris and Brasseye!) but it certainly is incredibly trippy.

We all know the scene, I am sure. Dumbo has gotten himself drunk on bubbly and witnesses this parade of pink elephants. At times beautiful and at time incredibly terrifying, this scene actually put me off getting drunk when I was a child. I have a very vivid memory of watching this as a little girl and making a very solemn promise to my mother that I would never ever EVER drink alcohol.

My how the times have changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=944cPciN-kw

3. Climb Inside – Ren & Stimpy

Ren & Stimpy was frequently very psychedellic in both style and content. One reviewer described the background style as being “reminiscent of holes in reality or the vision of a person in a deep state of dementia,” which certainly sums up my feelings on the subject too! I remember feeling quite nauseous at times watching Ren & Stimpy as a child, particulalry when they showed the gruesome and highly detailed close ups.

This little scene, where Stimpy somehow manages to turn himself inside out and climb inside his own belly button under the instruction of Jerry the Bellybutton Elf, epiomises the psychedellic nature of this classic cartoon, Apologies for the quality of the clip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9m7mhACGPU&feature=related

2. Heffalumps & Woozles

This is of a very similar vein to ‘Pink Elephants on Parade’ and is a warning to each and every one of us about the evils of excess! After overdosing on honey, Winnie the Pooh has this nightmare vision.

I was debating for a while about whether I would place this or ‘Elephants on Parade’ higher. Even though this scared me as a child and even put me off honey for a bit, much the same way that ‘Elephants’ put me off alcohol, I think this has a wee bit more charm. Beautifully animated, wonderfully colourful and psychedellic, and if you don’t know the song be prepared to be humming it for the rest of the day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLnADKgurvc

1. Yellow Submarine

Everyone must be more than aware of how much the greatest band of all time were influenced by their mind altering drugs, LSD in particular, and this remarkable film is a perfect illustration of such.

John Lennon stated quite categorically that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds wasn’t about LSD, even though the initials say otherwise, but that instead it was inspired by a drawing his son Julian had done. When John asked his son what the drawing was, Julian replied ‘it’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds.’

Whatever the inspiration for the song was however, there can be no denying that the visual imagery in the Yellow Submarine film, and for this song in particular is very much inspired by hallocingenic drugs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7F2X3rSSCU

But there is another approach. After all, many of the drugs that we now take to combat various symptoms such as insomnia, nausea, period pains, depression etc have only been discovered very recently, but these are problems that humans have suffered from for thousands of years, so there must be alternatives available. Before the advent of these drugs, us humans used herbal remedies.

For many years I have had problems with eczema. I was born with it, and although it has got much much better over recent years, stress can induce a bout of it. I particularly suffer with this behind my ears and no amount of creams that the doctor prescribes seem to work. It is as if my body has gotten so used to the amount of steroids and other harsh chemicals that it refuses to accept that more is being added. I recently heard of a plant called called mullein that can help. It claims to alleviate migraine symptoms, earache, and be effective on eczema, especially around the ear. Sounds perfect, I thought. And it it really does seem to be helping. I made the mullein into a water infusion, and use it to gently wash around my ears and already, after only a few days the soreness has gone and they don’t feel as dry.

It’s not the only plant that I’ve found can help alleviate minor problems. Peppermint tea is infintely better than any indegestion tablets you can take, and it tastes nicer too. Marshallow herb made into a tea seems to help when I have a flare up of IBS. If I’m having trouble sleeping I can make a tea out of Wild Lettuce and chamomile.

Of course sometimes an aspirin or paracetemol can’t be beaten, but if you can cut as much of the crap out of your system as possible, so much the better!

I was discussing past experiences with a friend the other day, and relived the first time I ever took magic mushrooms, whilst they were still legal to buy over the counter at headshops. At the fore-front of my mind when thinking about that evening was how I listened to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and really got it for the first time, and how I quite simply couldn’t imagine my life without Jimi Hendrix.

For those of you who have never taken a hallucinogen before, let me explain. The world outside where you are ceases to exist. If you are in a room with 4 other people, they become the only people you know. You cannot remember what it was like to not be on that trip. There is no past, no future; you can only deal in the present. You would, therefore, think nothing of having the same song on repeat for an hour at a time. Which is precisely what happened to me when my Best of Jimi Hendrix CD reached ‘Hey Joe.’ I had, at that moment, never heard anything that spoke to me so deeply and fundamentally, that I had to listen to it again and again and again. (After hearing it maybe four or five times I was beginning to lose interest. It was only accidentally leaning on the remote control and taking it off repeat that enabled the CD to continue.)

After the magic of Jimi ended, the CD changed to Sgt Pepper by The Beatles, and my God. Wow. I have always considered myself a big Beatles fan, but listening to that album whilst tripping was an incredibly profound experience for me, as I felt that I finally understood what Messrs Lennon and McCartney were trying to say back then, in the LSD fuelled days of 1967. I wish I could explain in sober words how I felt at that incredible moment during ‘A Day In The Life’ when the orchestra builds to a crescendo; all I can say is that at that moment it felt as if my whole life had been leading to me listening to that song, and that once the orchestra ended the meaning of life itself would be revealed.

Was it? I cannot say for sure. By that time I had noticed a Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow poster, and he was standing on a dock, his hair blowing in the wind, waves crashing behind him and flames erupting in the air, and at that moment nothing else mattered….

Ginseng is generally taken orally as an aphrodisiac, a stimulant, an adaptogen, for sexual dysfunction in men and for the treatment of type II diabetes. It can be consumed fresh either whole or sliced, or if it is bought dried it can be used in drinks. While the leaf is consumable, it is the root that is the main source of the legal highs associated with this amazing herb.

Ginseng is one of the most common ingredients found in popular energy drinks and teas around the world. However, many scientists argue that there are contradictory results as to the medicinal benefits of ginseng. Despite this, there is ample proof from centuries of use that ginseng is a great way to give your body a little bit of extra energy whenever you need it.

Legal highs are becoming more common as people discover new plants with stimulant or psychedelic properties, which can induce a euphoric state or stimulate the body in some way.

Ginseng is one of the most common herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, and is commonly seen in the western world as a dietary supplement for increased energy.