 " Eight Miles High " was released on March 14 , 1966 in the U.S. and May 29 , 1966 in the UK , reaching number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 , and number 24 on the UK Singles Chart . Following its release , the band faced allegations of advocating the use of recreational drugs from Bill Gavin 's Record Report , a weekly newsletter circulated to U.S. radio stations . This resulted in " Eight Miles High " being banned in a number of states within a week of the report being published , a factor which contributed to the single 's failure to break into the Billboard Top 10 . The Byrds and their publicist , Derek Taylor , countered by strenuously denying that the song was drug @-@ related , with Taylor issuing an indignant press release unequivocally stating that the song was about the band 's trip to England and not drug use . However , by the early 1980s , both Crosby and Clark were prepared to admit that the song was not entirely as innocent as they had originally declared , with the former stating " Of course it was a drug song ! We were stoned when we wrote it . " Clark was less blunt , explaining in interview that " it was about a lot of things . It was about the airplane trip to England , it was about drugs , it was about all that . A piece of poetry of that nature is not limited to having it have to be just about airplanes or having it have to be just about drugs . It was inclusive because during those days the new experimenting with all the drugs was a very vogue thing to do . " 
