Drugs take strange journeys from the black market to the doctor's black bag. Changing marijuana laws in the United States and Canada, the opioid crisis, and the rising costs of pharmaceuticals have sharpened the public's awareness of drugs and their regulation. Government, industry, and the medical profession, however, have a mixed record when it comes to framing policies and generating knowledge to address drug use and misuse. In Strange Trips Lucas Richert investigates the myths, meanings, and boundaries of recreational drugs, palliative care drugs, and pharmaceuticals as well as struggles over product innovation, consumer protection, and freedom of choice in the medical marketplace. Scrutinizing how we have conceptualized and regulated drugs amid the pressing and competing interests of state regulatory bodies, pharmaceutical and for-profit companies, scientific researchers, and medical professionals, Richert asks how perceptions of a product shift – from dangerous substance to medical breakthrough, or vice versa. Through close examination of archival materials, accounts, and records, he brings substances into conversation with each other and demonstrates the contentious relationship between scientific knowledge, cultural assumptions, and social concerns. Weaving together stories of consumer resistance and government control, Strange Trips offers timely recommendations for the future of drug regulation.

Drugs take strange journeys from the black market to the doctor's black bag. Changing marijuana laws in the United States and Canada, the opioid crisis, and the rising costs of pharmaceuticals have sharpened the public's awareness of drugs and their regulation. Government, industry, and the medical profession, however, have a mixed record when it comes to framing policies and generating knowledge to address drug use and misuse. In Strange Trips Lucas Richert investigates the myths, meanings, and boundaries of recreational drugs, palliative care drugs, and pharmaceuticals as well as struggles over product innovation, consumer protection, and freedom of choice in the medical marketplace. Scrutinizing how we have conceptualized and regulated drugs amid the pressing and competing interests of state regulatory bodies, pharmaceutical and for-profit companies, scientific researchers, and medical professionals, Richert asks how perceptions of a product shift – from dangerous substance to medical breakthrough, or vice versa. Through close examination of archival materials, accounts, and records, he brings substances into conversation with each other and demonstrates the contentious relationship between scientific knowledge, cultural assumptions, and social concerns. Weaving together stories of consumer resistance and government control, Strange Trips offers timely recommendations for the future of drug regulation.

The complete history of one of the most long-lived and legendary bands in rock history, written by its official historian and publicist—a must-have chronicle for all Dead Heads, and for students of rock and the 1960s’ counterculture. From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan exploded out of the artistic ferment of the early sixties’ roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. To those in the know, the Dead was an ongoing tour de force: a band whose constant commitment to exploring new realms lay at the center of a thirty-year journey through an ever-shifting array of musical, cultural, and mental landscapes. Dennis McNally, the band’s historian and publicist for more than twenty years, takes readers back through the Dead’s history in A Long Strange Trip. In a kaleidoscopic narrative, McNally not only chronicles their experiences in a fascinatingly detailed fashion, but veers off into side trips on the band’s intricate stage setup, the magic of the Grateful Dead concert experience, or metaphysical musings excerpted from a conversation among band members. He brings to vivid life the Dead’s early days in late-sixties San Francisco—an era of astounding creativity and change that reverberates to this day. Here we see the group at its most raw and powerful, playing as the house band at Ken Kesey’s acid tests, mingling with such legendary psychonauts as Neal Cassady and Owsley “Bear” Stanley, and performing the alchemical experiments, both live and in the studio, that produced some of their most searing and evocative music. But McNally carries the Dead’s saga through the seventies and into the more recent years of constant touring and incessant musical exploration, which have cemented a unique bond between performers and audience, and created the business enterprise that is much more a family than a corporation. Written with the same zeal and spirit that the Grateful Dead brought to its music for more than thirty years, the book takes readers on a personal tour through the band’s inner circle, highlighting its frenetic and very human faces. A Long Strange Trip is not only a wide-ranging cultural history, it is a definitive musical biography.

Perfect for fans of The Train to Impossible Places and Nevermoor, this “utterly delightful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) middle grade fantasy follows a young girl who uses a travel agency’s magical suitcases to travel to different worlds. When twelve-year-old Flick Hudson accidentally ends up in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, she uncovers a fantastic secret: there are hundreds of other worlds just steps away from hers. All you have to do to visit them is just jump into the right suitcase. Then Flick gets the invitation of a lifetime: join Strangeworlds’s magical travel society and explore other worlds. But, unbeknownst to Flick, the world at the very center of it all, a city called Five Lights, is in danger. Buildings and even streets are mysteriously disappearing. And when Flick realizes what’s going on, she must race against time, travelling through unchartered worlds, to find a way to fix Five Lights before it collapses into nothingness—and takes her world with it.

Who is this hero who beckons the reader to join him on his long, strange trip? Maybe he’s a Grinch-like misanthrope or perhaps an anti-social introvert. In any case, he encounters someone who is going to ensure he finds equilibrium in the world and who is going to enrich his inner and outer world during the most perplexing time of his life. He gets to taste the meaning of what it’s like to ponder, to avoid, to long for, and to give importance to someone else. As for his long, strange trip, it’s guaranteed to drag the reader transiting, skipping and leaping from reality to dreamland, from the past to the present and future, and from dialogue to one’s inner voice. *** “I’m all messed up. I drank until the break of day. I could barely get up from my armchair, and plunked down on the bed face up without changing into my PJs. I shut my eyes in the tar pit darkness and listened to my heaving breath that exited my nose. Just then, I started feeling cold. I couldn’t find the strength in me to get up, close the window, turn on the heater and clamber beneath the blanket. When I started to freeze up from my feet upwards, I then felt a mouse waltzing Matilda on my back as it nibbled on my sweater. My eyes, nose and lips began twitching uncontrollably. I tried to pull myself together. I told myself this was neither a dream, nor a nightmare and that I needed to get ready to set out on a long, strange trip…”

A guide to visiting the odd and less known tourist attractions in the state of Florida.