Arthur Rimbaud

The enfant-terrible of the french 19th century not only revolutionized poetry, but also swore by a dedication to total disorientation of the senses. Without which, he thought it impossible to create new art. Because so much has already been said, drawn, written, scuplted, that new techniques were needed to halt the procession of recycling the old, and to hasten the arrival of a new era...His favourite smoke was hashish.

"The Sun, the hearth of affection and life, pours burning love on the delighted earth."
- Arthur Rimbaud

Howard Marks

Drug addled welshman Howard Marks has achieved notoriety through international drug dealing, his alleged involvement with British secret services MI5 and MI6, La Cosa Nostra, the IRA and his subsequent writing of his escapades. A teacher in his earlier years, mr Marks went on to carve out a reputation second to none in the field of shifting large quanitites of marijuana over sensitive borders. His reign as King of the Kush was ended when the DEA grabbed him in 1988 and sentenced him to 25 years in the Tombs. He served only seven years of that sentence. At the height of his infamy he is rumoured to have held 43 aliases, 89 phone numbers and was hauling up to 30 tonnes of prime grade marijuana from Thailand and Pakistan to the US and Canada. To his credit, Marks has claimed that he never dealt in hard drugs or used violence in his work.

William Burroughs

One of the greatest minds and writers of modern history. Burroughs was a serial drug user, primarily focused on opiates, but regularly devouring an assortment of other psychoactive substances as he plumbed the depths of his own humanity to bring to the surface the wild ride that was his life and remains his writing.

As a young child Audrey Carsons wanted to be writers because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.

(Burroughs, Exterminator!)