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  • Article

Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs

The invention of the modern hypodermic syringe meant we could get high – or accidentally die – faster than before. Find out how this medical breakthrough was adapted for deadly uses.

  • Article

Booze and bad behaviour

Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.

  • Article

Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.

  • Article

A story of death, trauma and austerity

Marienna Pope-Weidemann, whose teenage cousin Gaia died after going missing, advocates a rethink of our systems, which currently fail many in mental distress.

All stories (5)

Images

  • A bottle and a glass with drugs on a table; an advertisement for the National Aids Helpline by the Liverpool Health Promotion Unit. Colour lithograph, 1994.
  • Don't harm yourself ... : arm yourself with knowledge about drugs / NIDA.
  • Three supporters of the Boxer Rebellion about to be executed at the command of the foreign alliance. Process print after F. de Haenen, 1900.
  • The brothers Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelius tortured, disembowelled and torn to pieces in the market-place of The Hague in 1672. Etching.
  • Rev. Pat Robertson converses with Vice-President Dan Quayle with numerous speech bubbles; a protest against their policies including those relating to AIDS. Lithograph.
  • Erythroxylum coca Lam. Erythroxylaceae Coca. Distribution: Peru . Cocaine is extracted from the leaf. It is no longer in the UK Pharmacopoeia (used to be used as a euphoriant in ‘Brompton Mixture’ for terminally ill patients). Cocaine, widely used as a local anaesthetic until 1903, inhibits re-uptake of dopamine and serotonin at brain synapses so these mood elevating chemicals build up and cause a ‘high’. Its use was often fatal. Coca leaf chewing was described by Nicolas Monardes (1569
  • Chinese opium smokers in a saloon experiencing various effects of the drug. Engraving by G. Paterson, 1843, after T. Allom.
  • Chinese opium smokers in a saloon experiencing various effects of the drug. Engraving by G. Paterson, 1843, after T. Allom.
  • New York State Soldiers' Depot, New York City: the hospital. Colour lithograph, 1864.
  • New York State Soldiers' Depot, New York City: wash and bath room. Colour lithograph, 1864.
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Catalogue

All works (92)