Drugs

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich. The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. But as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping new history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs. On the eve of World War II, Germany was a pharmaceutical powerhouse, and companies such as Merck and Bayer cooked up cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, to be consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to millions of German soldiers. In fact, troops regularly took rations of a form of crystal meth—the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to explain certain German military victories.

Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. Through junk neighbourhoods in New York, New Orleans and Mexico City, through time spent kicking, time spent dealing and time rolling drunks for money, through junk sickness and a sanatorium, Junky is a field report (by a writer trained in anthropology at Harvard) from the American post-war drug underground.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences , From 1990 to 1995 Dr. Rick Strassman conducted U.S. Government-approved and funded clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected sixty volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an extraordinarily riveting inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical found in the psychedelic Amazon brew, ayahuasca, is also manufactured by the human brain.

Marching Powder is a 2002 non-fiction book written by Australian author Rusty Young. It is based on the true story of a British-Tanzanian man, Thomas McFadden, who was apprehended in 1996 at La Paz airport in Bolivia with five kilos of cocaine in his suitcase and incarcerated in San Pedro prison.

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road American Kingpin is a non-fiction book written by Nick Bilton, published in 2017. The book tells the true story of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the online drug marketplace known as the Silk Road, and the federal investigation that led to his capture.

The Doors of Perception is an autobiographical book written by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1954, it elaborates on his psychedelic experience under the influence of mescaline in May 1953. The Doors of Perception provoked strong reactions for its evaluation of psychedelic drugs as facilitators of mystical insight with great potential benefits for science, art, and religion

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” is a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, first published in 1972. It is a roman à clef, blending elements of journalism, fiction, and autobiography. The book follows the protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they embark on a wild and drug-fueled journey through Las Vegas, Nevada.

David Farber is an American historian and author who has written extensively on the topic of the War on Drugs. His book, “The War on Drugs: A History” (2021), is a comprehensive and nuanced examination of the war on drugs in the United States.

Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age Tripped is a historical book written by Norman Ohler, published in 2024. It explores the little-known history of LSD, tracing its development from Nazi Germany to the CIA’s involvement and its impact on the psychedelic movement in the United States.