Jump to content

Page:Drug Themes in Science Fiction (Research Issues 9).djvu/30

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
Author: Pohl, Frederik
Title: What to do until the analyst comes
In: Alternating Currents
Publisher: Ballantine Books, New York
Pages: 143-154
Date: 1956
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as panaceas
Annotation:Narrator is an advertising man who tells how, after a cigarettes-and-lung-cancer scare, researchers discover a cheap, allegedly harmless and non-addictive euphoric drug, and it goes on the market in chewing-gum form as a replacement for cigarettes. Soon everyone is chewing Cheery-Gum except the narrator, who is allergic to it; and though the drug is theoretically non-addictive, it makes everyone so high that no one wants to give it up—leading to a dazed and tranquilized society in which everyone is euphoric and indolent and everyone maintains that he could kick the Cheery-Gum habit on a moment's notice. if he had any reason to do so—which he doesn't.




Author: Slesar, Henry
Title: I remember oblivion
Journal: Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vol. 30, No. 3, 36-43
Publisher: Mercury Press, New York
Date: March 1966
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-controllers
Annotation:A technique has been devised for literal brainwashing of criminals, i.e., the total eradication through chemo-therapy of memory, and the reconstruction, using drugs and "narco-hypnosis," of a new non-criminal personality within the existing body. The narrative cuts from the conversation of two scientists using the technique to the stream-of-consciousness of a rehabilitated criminal who, breaking through his conditioning, regains access to his memories and commits suicide in his guilt.






22