RockNRoll Drugs

Published: June 21, 2017, 6 a.m.

b'There are many ways to clear or expand your mind to allow creativity to flow, stress to dissipate and peace to descend on the mind and body\\u2026exercise, meditation, prayer\\u2026but that takes exertion, practice and devotion\\u2026what if there was a simpler way?\\n\\nWell, there is\\u2026drugs\\u2026it\\u2019s not the smartest way to solve your problems, but for centuries and centuries, drugs have worked for artists\\u2026\\n\\nWe can go all the way back to cave paintings made in France, Spain, Italy, southern Africa and the Americas 50,000 years ago that some anthropologists claim were made after these ancient artists took drugs, probably some kind of hallucinogenic mushrooms or plant extract\\u2026\\xa0\\n\\nWhy do scientists think that? because many of these paintings feature specific geometric shapes and images that scientists say are common visions resulting from the ingestion of certain types of chemicals\\u2026in other words, some of humankinds first artists were junkies\\u2026\\n\\nArt and genius drugs have gone together ever since\\u2014not always, but more than you might realize\\u2026\\n\\nVincent van Gogh?...he took digitalis for his epilepsy, which caused him to see everything with a slightly yellowish hue\\u2026think about that the next time you look at one of his paintings \\u2026Picasso liked hash\\u2026some say his cubist period was all about smoking hash\\u2026\\n\\nWould Friedrich Nietzsche have become a famous philosopher without his opium?...Thomas Edison enjoyed cocaine elixirs\\u2026how would World War II have turned out if Winston Churchill wasn\\u2019t wired on amphetamines? Andy Warhol liked obetrol (an early form of Adderall) so he could stay awake all night\\u2026both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were fans of LSD\\u2026\\n\\nSee what I mean?...and we haven\\u2019t even touched music\\u2026 rock stars often use drugs for both inspiration and escape, just like those cavemen 50,000 years ago...\\n\\nWhich drugs, which rock stars and why?...that\\u2019s what we\\u2019re going to investigate in a show that\\u2019s part chemistry, part psychiatry and part warning\\u2026welcome to a primer on rock\\u2019n\\u2019roll drugs\\u2026\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'