Hunter S. Thompson once named his favourite drug
Everything was a drug to Hunter S. Thompson, even music. “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me,” he once wrote. “A question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights, I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
Those are certainly the words of someone who has driven through Bat County with a head full of hallucinogens and a full tank of gas. Along with his beat pals, Thompson pretty much made America a more spun-out place. In some cases, almost literally: hell, he even introduced the Hells Angels to Ken Kesey, and therefore, naturally introduced the marauding empire of hoodlums to LSD too.
“During 1965 and 1966, Kesey was arrested twice for possession of marijuana and finally had to flee the country to avoid a lengthy prison term,” Thompson wrote. “His association with the Hell’s Angels was not calculated to calm his relationship with the forces of law and decency, but he pursued it nonetheless and with overwhelming zeal.”
The scenes that unfurled from culture’s comedown bled onto the pages of Fear and Loathing, in which he wrote: “The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy—five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high—powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-coloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.”
As for his own involvement with substances, it’s hard to look beyond the daily drug regime he claims that he was self-administering. Which you can gaup at below.
Hunter S. Thompson’s daily drug routine:
- 3:00pm – Rise
- 3:05 – Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhills
- 3:45 – Cocaine
- 3:50 – Another glass of Chivas, Dunhill
- 4:05 – First cup of coffee, Dunhill
- 4:15 – Cocaine
- 4:16 – Orange juice, Dunhill
- 4:30 – Cocaine
- 4:54 – Cocaine
- 5:05 – Cocaine
- 5:11 – Coffee, Dunhills
- 5:30 – More ice in the Chivas
- 5:45 – Cocaine, etc., etc.
- 6:00 – Grass to take the edge off the day
- 7:05 – Woody Creek Tavern for lunch. Heineken, two margaritas, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken, cocaine, and for the ride home, a snow cone (a glass of shredded ice over which is poured three or four jiggers of Chivas.)
- 9:00 – Starts snorting cocaine seriously
- 10:00 – Drops acid
- 11:00 – Chartreuse, cocaine, grass
- 11:30 – Cocaine, etc, etc.
- 12:00 (midnight) – Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write
- 12:05 – 6:00am – Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies.
- 6:00 – The hot tub-champagne, Dove Bars, fettuccine Alfredo
- 8:00 – Halcyon
- 8:20 – Sleep
The keen observer will have noted that one of the most comical elements of the whole thing is that he’s not only writing out of his mind, but for six straight hours of it, he also has porn on in the background. Whether this is just another work of cunning identity-creating fiction, an exaggeration of the truth, or somehow a medical miracle that actually played out, there is no doubt that he had a penchant for drugs.
When he was asked by Playboy in 1974 which drug was his favourite, he replied: “Probably mescaline and mushrooms: That’s a genuine high. It’s not just an up—you know, like speed, which is really just a motor high. When you get into psychedelics like mescaline and mushrooms, it’s a very clear kind of high, an interior high.”
Continuing: “But really, when you’re dealing with psychedelics, there’s only one king drug, when you get down to it, and that’s acid. About twice a year, you should blow your fucking tubes out with a tremendous hit of really good acid. Take 72 hours and just go completely amuck, break it all down.” And there speaks one of God’s own prototypes.
