Essays and Fictions
He opens his briefcase a crack and takes out a brown bottle. “Here,” he says, “take a couple Serenadons. These are the best antianxiety treatment ever invented.” They just don’t exist yet. “Just pretend,” he says, “for the placebo effect.” And he shakes two into my hand.
Chuck Palahniuk • Survivor: A Novel
Is the Controlled Substances Act really responsible for the general decline since 1970? We’re not sure, but what is clear is that drugs are foundational technologies, like the motor, combustion engine, semiconductor, or the concept of an experiment. New drugs lead to scientific revolutions. Some of those drugs, like coffee, continue to fuel fields ... See more
Slime Mold Time Mold • Higher than the Shoulders of Giants; Or, a Scientist’s History of Drugs
Junk is a pain-killer, it also kills the pain and pleasure implicit in awareness.
William Burroughs • Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
this is it about addiction. You can film it and talk and write about it but there’s no way to capture it. It’s a black hole. A black hole sucking us—the addicts—in, sometimes spitting us out, sometimes not, sometimes sucking us back in again. And again.