ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines the use "drugs" as a point of departure for political information and cultural reflections. The vastness of the topic, however, the polymorphous perversity of drugs' effects on both users and nonusers, makes it impossible to develop a linear argument. The silence on the topic of drugs is partially due to the illegal status of drug (ab)use, which keeps people from being personal and prevents the formation of a symbolic sphere on the topic. Drugs in cyberpunk fiction are high-tech substances produced by pharmaceutical companies to enhance our performances—something in the line of steroids. The newer generation, free from the romanticizing of drugs that afflicted his generation, ought to be in a better position to judge pragmatically. The Harrison Act of 1914 was the legal watershed from which all subsequent drug laws have descended.
