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The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends: A Very Trippy Miscellany
Read Adriano Sack's posts on the Penguin Blog.
“Curiouser and curiouser” —fun and fascinating facts from the world of drugs.
Following in the tradition of The Ultimate Book of Useless Information, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends is a wry potpourri of interesting information about every conceivable kind of drug. Readers can feed their heads with anecdotes, facts, lists, statistics, and illustrations, including:
• The test results of animals on LSD—cats lose their fear of dogs, and goats walk in geometric patterns
• Drugs found in nature, from magic mushrooms to St. John’s wort to beaver secretions
• Celebrities who overdosed at age 27—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and Jean Michel-Basquiat
• Imaginary drugs in literature and film, from spice the mélange in Dune to Moloko plus in A Clockwork Orange
• Nicknames for a joint—from doobie to giggly stick to Mr. Boom Bizzle
• The global percentages of adults who have used cannabis—.004 percent in Singapore and 12.6 percent in the United States
• The uses of opium in ancient Rome—from treatments for insomnia and epilepsy to colic and deafness
• The most glamorous rehab clinics and their celebrity alumni
• Mini-biographies of the biggest drug kingpins around the world
Wacky but well-researched, unbiased and shameless, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends dares to take readers on a long, strange trivia trip.
“Curiouser and curiouser” —fun and fascinating facts from the world of drugs.
Following in the tradition of The Ultimate Book of Useless Information, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends is a wry potpourri of interesting information about every conceivable kind of drug. Readers can feed their heads with anecdotes, facts, lists, statistics, and illustrations, including:
• The test results of animals on LSD—cats lose their fear of dogs, and goats walk in geometric patterns
• Drugs found in nature, from magic mushrooms to St. John’s wort to beaver secretions
• Celebrities who overdosed at age 27—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and Jean Michel-Basquiat
• Imaginary drugs in literature and film, from spice the mélange in Dune to Moloko plus in A Clockwork Orange
• Nicknames for a joint—from doobie to giggly stick to Mr. Boom Bizzle
• The global percentages of adults who have used cannabis—.004 percent in Singapore and 12.6 percent in the United States
• The uses of opium in ancient Rome—from treatments for insomnia and epilepsy to colic and deafness
• The most glamorous rehab clinics and their celebrity alumni
• Mini-biographies of the biggest drug kingpins around the world
Wacky but well-researched, unbiased and shameless, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends dares to take readers on a long, strange trivia trip.
181 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
11 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 25, 2023
Full of lots of info on drugs (duh). I don't think this book should fall in the hands of the wrong person, because it might make them do drugs. And it was sad reading all the experiments with drugs on animals.
And I really couldn't believe the one bio where the guy on drugs chopped up his drug dealer and just left him in the bathtub for a couple of days and then threw him in a garbage bag and into the river and THEN boasted about it!!!
*Don't do drugs*
And I really couldn't believe the one bio where the guy on drugs chopped up his drug dealer and just left him in the bathtub for a couple of days and then threw him in a garbage bag and into the river and THEN boasted about it!!!
*Don't do drugs*
June 21, 2016
everything this pot and/or otherwise
substance virgin has almost ever
wanted to know about the properties
of ski poles, speeding tickets, dummy
dust, psychotropic fish, pop chart hits,
mellow yellow hoaxes and the alcoholic
content of old spice.
substance virgin has almost ever
wanted to know about the properties
of ski poles, speeding tickets, dummy
dust, psychotropic fish, pop chart hits,
mellow yellow hoaxes and the alcoholic
content of old spice.
March 13, 2019
The book that started me on my journey as a psychonaut...I will forever be indebted to it.
April 10, 2022
i guess now i can say i know a little bit about a lot of drugs lol
**read in response to 2022 popsugar reading challenge prompt “a book with a recipe in it”** (😂)
**read in response to 2022 popsugar reading challenge prompt “a book with a recipe in it”** (😂)
December 31, 2019
This book is a funny and creepy guide to the drug underworld. It has a quick reading and can be browsed easily. It holds stories, mixture recipes, songs and art works explanations, and more. Hence, it doesn’t have an established reading order. One just can choose a random page and start reading. At times, it reveals how twisted mankind is, and how drug’s dark-side always tends to win over the good one.
January 31, 2016
Packed full of information. My biggest critique would be that it's poorly organized...actually the organization is nonexistent. Everything is just thrown together, and the index is just a list of the topics in the order they appear, you can't actually look anything up. Other than that it's a great read.
October 21, 2008
The only book I've ever found on the subject of drugs, that doesn't just glorify or villify them. Informantive, plain and simple. Also a fun set up.
September 16, 2009
Chock full of interesting and fun facts! A must for anyone interested in the chemical world...
September 20, 2009
this is my favorite book of all time very funny
March 22, 2010
Informative and interesting!
Read
July 11, 2010Yeah. Don't do drugs kids... !
October 1, 2010
quite interesting in it's explanation of the drug world and even threw out some facts that i wasn't aware of... a very fun informing read, i recommend it for sure.
July 24, 2012
Interesting read! However, the layout and choice of fonts drove me crazy
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews