Drugs, the Internet and change.

Summary

The article explores the intertwined relationship between drugs and the Internet, with a focus on psychedelics. It details the history of programming on psychedelics in Silicon Valley from the 1960s onward and examines how drugs are conceptualized as a technology and technology as a drug. The Internet facilitates drug markets—white, grey, and black—turning it into a candy store for pharmaceuticals, recreational, and lifestyle drugs. Online forums become street corners, challenging global prohibition. The Web as an information source may pose the greatest challenge, as experiential discourses offer alternatives to the hegemonic narrative, reconfiguring relationships among drugs, sellers, and users.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article investigates the symbiotic relationship between drugs and the Internet, focusing (though not exclusively) on psychedelics. Programming on psychedelics in Silicon Valley from the 1960s to date is detailed, as are the twinned conceptualizations of drugs as a technology and technology as a drug. The correlation between drugs, the Internet, and consumerism is explored: the Internet is a medium through which "white," "grey" and "black" drug markets flourish. Thus, this article details the burgeoning online trades in pharmaceuticals, recreational, and "life-style" drugs that turn the Internet into a veritable candy store. Drug forums transmogrify into street corners, threatening the continued existence of the current system of global prohibition. However, it is arguably the use of the Web as an information source that may offer the greatest challenge to the incumbent paradigm, with experiential discourses offering alternatives to the hegemonic narrative, as the relationships between drugs, those who sell drugs and drug takers are reconfigured online.