Read Adriano Sack's posts on the Penguin Blog.



"Curiouser and curiouser" -fun and fascinating facts from the world of drugs.



Following in the tradition of The Ultimate Book of Useless Information, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends is a wry potpourri of interesting information about every conceivable kind of drug. Readers can feed their heads with anecdotes, facts, lists, statistics, and illustrations, including:



• The test results of animals on LSD-cats lose their fear of dogs, and goats walk in geometric patterns

• Drugs found in nature, from magic mushrooms to St. John's wort to beaver secretions

• Celebrities who overdosed at age 27-Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and Jean Michel-Basquiat

• Imaginary drugs in literature and film, from spice the mélange in Dune to Moloko plus in A Clockwork Orange

• Nicknames for a joint-from doobie to giggly stick to Mr. Boom Bizzle

• The global percentages of adults who have used cannabis-.004 percent in Singapore and 12.6 percent in the United States

• The uses of opium in ancient Rome-from treatments for insomnia and epilepsy to colic and deafness

• The most glamorous rehab clinics and their celebrity alumni

• Mini-biographies of the biggest drug kingpins around the world



Wacky but well-researched, unbiased and shameless, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends dares to take readers on a long, strange trivia trip.

Adriano Sack is a freelance journalist living in New York City.

Ingo Niermann is a writer living in Berlin.