by Jack Stevenson

The book treats drugs with the respect they deserve as it vividly describes, in lurid detail, the depths of despair that users and addicts can reach in their quest for the ultimate high. It's an image that filmmakers have been trying to capture since the beginning of cinema with varying results, and these efforts take up the bulk of the books opening chapters.

We begin with Stevenson's own 'Highway to Hell' an historical overview of the entire genre. Taking in the early propaganda pieces such as 'Reefer Madness' "Dope created Ecstasy avalanching into frightful perversions" and 'Cocaine' "The Thrill that Kills" this section features some wonderful poster reproductions that perfectly sum up the hysteria that this subject matter has always invoked. It was really in the sixties that the drug movie came into its own. Flower Power and psychedelic music was everywhere so Hollywood naturally tried to pull in the masses with movies such as 'Head' and 'The Trip'. These movies featured far out dialogue and groovy effects as the protagonists tried to convey with blissed out grins, how wonderful the results of their substance abuse was.

The freewheeling anything goes nature of the sixties influenced the seventies where directors such as Paul Morrisey and Russ Meyer were producing over the top classics such as 'Trash' and 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'. The only way that eighties drug cinema could go was hyper realism and Stevenson's entertaining guide through the years detailing the outcry and consternation that each release caused makes for entertaining reading.

Paperback - 256 pages