Top 5

High-achieving drug-fuelled creatives

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 17 November, 2010 10:37

In honour of the Welcome Institute’s brilliant-looking new exhibition on the history of drug use throughout civilisation (Bloomsbury, until Feb 27th 2011), Snipe was inspired to share five creative folks from history who used chemicals to explore the deepest caverns of their consciousness. Don’t try this at home. It’s far too expensive.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Anyone who’s been watching the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon impressionathon The Trip on BBC2 will be familiar with Coleridge’s famed intake of opium and laudanum. “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”? The clues are all there.

Aldous Huxley

Clicking on Aldous’ name above will transport you to a fascinating, very moving letter in which Huxley’s wife Laura describes his final moments before death. She had just given him a hefty shot of LSD, and bade him farewell with these words: “You are going towards the light…It is easy, and you are doing this beautifully and willingly and consciously, in full awareness, in full awareness, darling, you are going towards the light.” Now that’s a way to die.

Edvard Munch

If you’ve seen The Scream but know nothing of Munch’s life, it’s well worth a Google. Some edited highlights: damaged two fingers in a accidental shooting incident with his mistress; spent much of his time brawling while tanked up on booze and painkillers; narrowly avoided bathing in blood at a slightly wacko old fashioned version of The Priory, but did succumb to electrification therapy which he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed. All good clean fun.

Robert Louis Stevenson

By all accounts, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written on a massive cocaine binge. This came as news to Snipe, which is never going to watch Muppet Treasure Island in quite the same way again. As an aside, doesn’t he look like a prototype Shoreditch twat in this picture? Disturbing.

Miles Davis

Wrote one of the most influential albums of the 20th century in heroin haze. But seriously guys, don’t do heroin. Stick to harmless stuff like alcohol and hydrogenated fats.

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