Page:Drug Themes in Science Fiction (Research Issues 9).djvu/16

 fiction. The older science fiction was preponderantly negative, as, for example, James Gunn's, published in 1961 but written half a decade earlier, in which a repressive government sustains itself through mandatory use of euphorics. The same theme can be found in Hartley's (1960), and in other works. Even when not used as an instrument of totalitarianism, drugs are often seen as dangerous self-indulgence, as in Wellman's (1938), Smith's  (1953), or Pohl's  (1956). The prototypes for the imaginary drugs described in these stories are alcohol and heroin—drugs which blur the mind and lower the consciousness.

Much recent science fiction, however, taking cognizance of such newly popular drugs as LSD, marijuana, and mescaline, show society transformed, enhanced, and raised up by drug use. Silverberg's (1971) portrays a dour, self-hating culture into which comes a drug that stimulates direct telepathic contact between human minds and brings into being a subculture of love and openness. This creates a great convulsion in the society, but the implication is that the change the drug brings is beneficial. Similarly, in Panshin's (1971), a drug called  that induces travel in time is part of the educational process of a future society. In by McCombs and White (1965) LSD is used as a training device to prepare astronauts for the rigors of interstellar travel, and in H. H. Hollis'  (1972) hallucinogenic drugs have become routine aspects of courtroom work. Another view of a society transformed but not necessarily injured by mass drug use is Wyman Guin's, dating from 1951, in which schizophrenia is desired and encouraged and is induced by drugs. In Silverberg's (1971) hallucinogens play a part in ecstatic religion on another world.

A variant of the mind-expanding drug is the intelligence-enhancing drug, long a common theme in science fiction. Some recent exponents of the theme are Brunner's (1973), Dickson's  (1973), and Disch's  (1968).

Not all depiction of drugs in irecent science fiction is sympathetic, of course. Aldiss' (1970) shows all of Europe thrown into confusion by the "acid-head war," in which an Arab power doses the whole continent with psychedelic weapons. (Aldiss does indicate at least peripherally that the new tripped-out culture emerging in war-wrecked Europe is not entirely inferior to its predecessor.) Chester Anderson's lighthearted (1967) depicts hallucinogenic drugs as weapons employed by aliens,