Higher than the Shoulders of Giants; Or, a Scientist’s History of Drugs

Ten Drugs- thomas Hager

People have different diseases, doctors hold different ideas about those diseases, and diseases carry different meanings in society

No drug is good, no drug is bad, for every drug is both

Poppy seeds- over 10,000 years ago- in today’s Syria

Opium was appealing because it always pitched the body while romancing the imagination... See more

The extraordinary success of a few internet companies has masked the embarrassing lack of major breakthroughs in other domains. There has been little improvement in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, which affect nearly a third of all Americans over the age of eighty-five. There is still no cure for cancer. Life expectancy is... See more

Our dopamine economy, or what historian David Courtwright has called “limbic capitalism,” is driving this change, aided by transformational technology that has increased not just access but also drug numbers, variety, and potency.

Drugs that save lives, like technologies that transform industries, often begin with lone inventors championing crazy ideas. But large groups of people are needed to translate those ideas into products that work. When teams with the means to develop those ideas reject them, as every large research organization rejected Miller’s piranha, those break

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Drugs that save lives, like technologies that transform industries, often begin with lone inventors championing crazy ideas. But large groups of people are needed to translate those ideas into products that work. When teams with the means to develop those ideas reject them, as every large research organization rejected Miller’s piranha, those break

... See more

“I came of age at a magical time,” he reflected later. “Our consciousness was raised by Zen, and also by LSD.” Even later in life he would credit psychedelic drugs for making him more enlightened. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t re

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