Acknowledgements

ANYBODY KNOWN TO BE WRITING ABOUT DRUGS CAN COUNT UPON getting countless ideas and suggestions and occasionally a valuable lead towards books or authors he has never heard of. I have been very lucky, in this respect; finding myself more than once in possession of a scrap of paper with some reference on it, and remembering only that I had received it from some chance acquaintance at a party. To all those who have helped me in this way, my thanks; and especially to Frances Fitzgerald, Dr Griffith Edwards, Professor Max Gluckman, Professor Bernard Lewis, Dr Jonathan Miller, Dr Neal E. Miller, Professor Michael Shepherd, Dr Gerry Stimson, Frances Verrinder, R. G. Wasson, and Lyall Watson. Francis Huxley made some suggestions about the section on drugs in primitive societies which I was glad to incorporate; Raye Farr, and Bill Grundy read a preliminary draft (I hope I have profited from their astringent comments) and, along with Bernard Levin (I wish I could have included some of his asides) somehow also found the time to do the invaluable chore of proof-reading. I am also grateful to Jasper Woodcock and his team at the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence; but my chief debt is to the London Library, for the help from its staff, and for the access to its shelves, where I could browse at random in the — to me — often unfamiliar territory into which the research so often lured me.