The 1960s counterculture is synonymous with San Francisco, a city where hippies roamed the Haight, tripped on acid and fled the law.

And so it is fitting that San Francisco will again run counter to the mainstream this fall when a local university unveils the nation’s first bachelor’s degree in psychedelic studies.

“Wow!” said guitarist Barry “The Fish” Melton, a counterculture icon who played at Woodstock in 1969 with Country Joe and the Fish and still does gigs in the city. “It’s amazing, quite frankly, that you could actually get a degree in psychedelics.”

Unlike those experimental days of yesteryear, when the Tibetan Book of the Dead was the closest thing to an academic textbook for hippies seeking enlightenment through the wonders of mescaline, LSD, peyote and magic mushrooms, a team of Ph.D.s is poised to help undergraduates “explore the foundations and developments in the field of psychedelic medicines, all while holding to the highest possible standards of ethics and safety.”