THINGS GO BETTER WITH DEER URINE

Writing On Drugs - Sadie Plant - Faber Pounds 9.99, Pp276 Reviewed By Howard
Marks

Sadie Plant's Writing On Drugs tells us the source and history of drugs,
ranging from Coca-Cola and tobacco to Aldous Huxley's soma in Brave New
World, providing informed insight into almost every topic on drugs worthy of
discussion. For such a short and easy-to-read book, Plant's study contains
an astounding amount of information, and by not limiting itself merely to
drug information, avoids the monotony typical of many books on similar
themes. Writing on Drugs attempts to give us the whole picture of our
drug-using world and to put drugs on our cultural map: 'Even the most sober
individual lives in a world in which drugs have already had profound affects.'

The first part reads like a piece of literary criticism, exploring the lives
and works of well-known writers who used drugs. Although Plant concludes
that no one has succeeded in expressing the feeling of intoxication to his
or her satisfaction, her writing aptly illustrates both the terror and the
glee of drug use. Thomas De Quincey is seen to fear the 'alien natures'
opium has released/ created in him, and Robert Southey is shown to have
enjoyed laughing gas (nitrous oxide) so much as to have thought that 'the
atmosphere of the highest of all possible heavens must be composed of this gas'.

Plant's exploration of the literature is not limited to that of drug-using
authors and accounts of drug-use: The Thousand and One Nights contains a
number of stories about hash use. Plant summarises the most famous story of
these volumes, the story of Shahiyar and Shazaman, and generally takes every
opportunity to educate the reader or to tell some new tale.

Writing On Drugs outlines the objections to drugs and the reasons for taking
them. Baudelaire is quoted as an outline of the church's objections to drug
use. He regards 'only those riches as legitimate and genuine that are earned
by assiduous seeking'. Perhaps this statement contains the explanation for
Catholic Tony Blair's insistence on implementing policies of prohibition.
Someone should tell the church how difficult it has made it to score (not
that this stops any one, it just takes more time).

Sigmund Freud features as one of cocaine's earliest enthusiasts. He is
quoted from a letter to his partner, forewarning her of the pleasures she
could expect from a 'wild man with cocaine in his body'. After reflecting
that since Freud, psychoanalysis has become 'as fashionable, addictive and
expensive as cocaine', Plant goes on to explore the advances that have been
made in neurochemistry, summarising what is known about the functioning of
the brain and exploring the plausibility of new theories about its workings.
This is related back to what early writers like De Quincey thought was
happening to them on opium.

Writing On Drugs contains the standard information on drugs - the commercial
history of hemp, experiments with the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco and
Coca-Cola's abandonment of cocaine in its ingredients. It also documents
less well-known aspects of drug use such as the invention of a syringe by
Christopher Wren in 1656, which consisted of a quill and a bladder. It even
contains an account of semi-nomadic people in Siberia who used to get high
by drinking the urine of deer which had fed on magic mushrooms.

Plant draws a number of intriguing analogies between opium and photography,
cocaine and advertising and witch-hunts and the drug war. Drug consumption
in wartime is explored, revealing the use of amphetamines by both Hitler and
Churchill. The large number of wars fought by the United States that were
supported by the trade in opium are also discussed.

Drugs can be bewitching, and it is this power that is feared. It is a drug's
supposed ability to remove the user's willpower and rational faculties that
justifies state protection from their use. When war was declared on drugs in
the United States, it was declared to be an 'unending war'. Despite the vast
amounts of money, the military intrusion into civilian life and the huge
increase in the prison population, this psychoactive substance, symbolised
by a dragon in Plant's book, has bewitched both user and enforcer: 'It
danced ahead, it laughed at you, it knew you would fail. You heard it all
and still became the dragon's tail.'

Writing on Drugs is educational and entertaining. I find it encouraging that
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
during six days and nights of a cocaine high, while it is also nice to know
that the architect responsible for the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi, was a
coke enthusiast. This book has it all.

95 To order Writing on Drugs for pounds 7.99, plus 99p p&p, call Observer
CultureShop on 0500 500 171

UK: Things Go Better With Deer Urine

Pubdate: Tue. 26 Sep 1999
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: Guardian Media Group plc. 1999
Contact: editor@observer.co.uk
Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Section: Books
Author: Howard Marks

THINGS GO BETTER WITH DEER URINE

Writing On Drugs - Sadie Plant - Faber Pounds 9.99, Pp276 Reviewed By Howard
Marks

Sadie Plant's Writing On Drugs tells us the source and history of drugs,
ranging from Coca-Cola and tobacco to Aldous Huxley's soma in Brave New
World, providing informed insight into almost every topic on drugs worthy of
discussion. For such a short and easy-to-read book, Plant's study contains
an astounding amount of information, and by not limiting itself merely to
drug information, avoids the monotony typical of many books on similar
themes. Writing on Drugs attempts to give us the whole picture of our
drug-using world and to put drugs on our cultural map: 'Even the most sober
individual lives in a world in which drugs have already had profound affects.'

The first part reads like a piece of literary criticism, exploring the lives
and works of well-known writers who used drugs. Although Plant concludes
that no one has succeeded in expressing the feeling of intoxication to his
or her satisfaction, her writing aptly illustrates both the terror and the
glee of drug use. Thomas De Quincey is seen to fear the 'alien natures'
opium has released/ created in him, and Robert Southey is shown to have
enjoyed laughing gas (nitrous oxide) so much as to have thought that 'the
atmosphere of the highest of all possible heavens must be composed of this gas'.

Plant's exploration of the literature is not limited to that of drug-using
authors and accounts of drug-use: The Thousand and One Nights contains a
number of stories about hash use. Plant summarises the most famous story of
these volumes, the story of Shahiyar and Shazaman, and generally takes every
opportunity to educate the reader or to tell some new tale.

Writing On Drugs outlines the objections to drugs and the reasons for taking
them. Baudelaire is quoted as an outline of the church's objections to drug
use. He regards 'only those riches as legitimate and genuine that are earned
by assiduous seeking'. Perhaps this statement contains the explanation for
Catholic Tony Blair's insistence on implementing policies of prohibition.
Someone should tell the church how difficult it has made it to score (not
that this stops any one, it just takes more time).

Sigmund Freud features as one of cocaine's earliest enthusiasts. He is
quoted from a letter to his partner, forewarning her of the pleasures she
could expect from a 'wild man with cocaine in his body'. After reflecting
that since Freud, psychoanalysis has become 'as fashionable, addictive and
expensive as cocaine', Plant goes on to explore the advances that have been
made in neurochemistry, summarising what is known about the functioning of
the brain and exploring the plausibility of new theories about its workings.
This is related back to what early writers like De Quincey thought was
happening to them on opium.

Writing On Drugs contains the standard information on drugs - the commercial
history of hemp, experiments with the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco and
Coca-Cola's abandonment of cocaine in its ingredients. It also documents
less well-known aspects of drug use such as the invention of a syringe by
Christopher Wren in 1656, which consisted of a quill and a bladder. It even
contains an account of semi-nomadic people in Siberia who used to get high
by drinking the urine of deer which had fed on magic mushrooms.

Plant draws a number of intriguing analogies between opium and photography,
cocaine and advertising and witch-hunts and the drug war. Drug consumption
in wartime is explored, revealing the use of amphetamines by both Hitler and
Churchill. The large number of wars fought by the United States that were
supported by the trade in opium are also discussed.

Drugs can be bewitching, and it is this power that is feared. It is a drug's
supposed ability to remove the user's willpower and rational faculties that
justifies state protection from their use. When war was declared on drugs in
the United States, it was declared to be an 'unending war'. Despite the vast
amounts of money, the military intrusion into civilian life and the huge
increase in the prison population, this psychoactive substance, symbolised
by a dragon in Plant's book, has bewitched both user and enforcer: 'It
danced ahead, it laughed at you, it knew you would fail. You heard it all
and still became the dragon's tail.'

Writing on Drugs is educational and entertaining. I find it encouraging that
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
during six days and nights of a cocaine high, while it is also nice to know
that the architect responsible for the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi, was a
coke enthusiast. This book has it all.

To order Writing on Drugs for pounds 7.99, plus 99p p&p, call Observer
CultureShop on 0500 500 171