head shop

A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. Products may include magazines (e.g., about cannabis culture, cannabis cultivation, tattooing and music), clothing, and home décor (e.g., posters and wall hangings illustrating drug culture themes such as cannabis, jam bands like The Grateful Dead, psychedelic art, etc.) Some head shops also sell oddities, such as antique walking sticks and sex toys. Since the 1980s, some head shops have sold clothing related to the heavy metal or punk subculture, such as band T-shirts and cloth patches with band logos, studded wristbands, bullet belts and leather boots. Head shops emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and many of them had close ties to the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as groups in the marijuana legalization movement like LeMar, Amorphia, and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.