Utterly fascinating and illuminating' Sinclair McKay 'Fascinating... An astonishing read, with remarkably vivid protagonists' Harald Jähner 'Ohler weaves a masterful tapestry of history in this revealing and fresh account' David de Jong 'Brilliantly sifting a massive history for its ideological through lines, this is a must-read.' Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Berlin, 1945. Following the fall of the Third Reich, drug use - long kept under control by the Nazis' strict anti-drug laws - is rampant throughout the city. In the American sector, Arthur J. Giuliani of the nascent Federal Bureau of Narcotics is tasked with learning about the Nazis' drug policies and bringing home anything that might prove 'useful'.
Five years later, Harvard professor Dr Henry Beecher begins work with the US government to uncover the research behind the Nazis' psychedelics programme. Originally created for medical purposes by Dr Albert Hofmann, the Nazis coopted LSD to experiment with mind control and find a 'truth serum' - research that the US, particularly the CIA, is desperate to acquire.
Based on extensive archival research, Tripped is a wild, unconventional post-war history, a spiritual sequel to Norman Ohler's bestselling Blitzed. Revealing the hidden connections between the Nazis and the CIA's notorious brainwashing experimentation programme, MKUltra, Ohler shares how this secret history held back the therapeutic research of psychedelic drugs for decades as the West sought to turn LSD into a weapon.
"Entertaining... Tripped is a story of front organizations, dodgy funds, bizarre experiments, assassinations, scientists, magicians, hookers, and spies."
The Times
"Ohler's book is at once a jaunty history of psychedelics, and a fascinating lament that the double-pronged legacy of Nazi drug policy - zero tolerance and weaponization - so severely limited research into their medicinal properties."
