Page:Drug Themes in Science Fiction (Research Issues 9).djvu/35

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Author: Hartley, L. P.
Title: Facial Justice
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 263 pp.
Date: 1960
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-controllers
Annotation:The scene is the not very distant future, after the Third World War. Nine tenths of the human race has been destroyed and the survivors are ruled by a benevolent dictator who reduces conflict situations by imposing an enforced equality: personalities are standardized, numbers are used for names, women undergo plastic surgery so that none will seem too beautiful or too ugly. This dreary homogenized state is kept under control by dosing the citizens daily with a sedative-like bromide to which most people have become addicted; it lowers vitality and reduces noncomformity.




Author: Gunn, James
Title: The Joymakers
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York
Pages: 160 pp.
Date: 1961
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as euphorics
Annotation:Under the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 2003, hedonism is the law of the land. The function of government, it has been decided, is "the preservation and promotion of the temporary happiness of its citizens." Gloom is outlawed and happiness is mandatory. It is attained through mental disciplines, through mechanical regulation of the metabolism, and through the free use of drugs—notably mescaline, "neo-heroin," various alkaloids, and certain futuristic euphorics.






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