Hunting for reasons

I watched the film adaptation of Hunter.S.Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The film itself is typical surreal Terry Gilliam stuff as he re-creates the sights and sounds of Thompson's massive drugs bender. Despite my rather liberal views I did find myself wondering how much of the portrayed trip was actually happened. It seemed despite numerous bad trips nothing discouraged the characters from consuming more of their cocktail of drugs while simultaneously trashing more hotel rooms. The end of the film did discuss the ramifications of the tail end of the 60's where pro-drug proponents such at Tim Leary encouraged experimentation with consciousness versus the hedonistic reality for most drug users. I still came away thinking Thompson was an irresponsible, self centred idiot who isn't really deserving of being an icon of the 60's counterculture. I'll have to see if I can get hold of a copy of The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test to see if there was a point to the psychedelic 60's because from last nights film I'm kind of wondering why it happened?