Drugs, the Internet and change.

The article examines the intertwined relationship between drugs and the Internet, with a particular focus on psychedelics. It traces the history of programming on psychedelics in Silicon Valley from the 1960s to the present, and explores how drugs are conceptualized as a technology and technology as a drug. The Internet facilitates white, grey, and black drug markets, turning it into a veritable candy store for pharmaceuticals, recreational, and lifestyle drugs. Online forums act as virtual street corners, challenging global prohibition. The greatest challenge to the current paradigm may be the Web as an information source, where experiential discourses offer alternatives to the hegemonic narrative, reconfiguring relationships between 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.