"Berlin 1945. Following the fall of the Third Reich drug use-long kept under control by the
Nazis' strict anti-drug laws-is rampant throughout the city. Split into four sectors Berlin's
drug policies are being enforced under the individual jurisdictions of each allied power-the
Soviet Union Britain France and the US. In the American zone Arthur J. Giuliani of the
nascent Federal Bureau of Narcotics is tasked with learning about the Nazis' anti-drug laws and
bringing home anything that might prove "useful" to the United States. Five years later
Harvard professor Dr. Henry Beecher began work with the US government to uncover the research
behind the Nazis psychedelics program. Begun as an attempt to find a "truth serum" and
experiment with mind control the Nazi study initially involved mescaline but quickly expanded
to include LSD. Originally created for medical purposes by Swiss pharmaceutical Sandoz the
Nazis coopted the drug for their mind control military research-research that following the
war the US was desperate to acquire. This research birthed MKUltra the CIA's notorious
brainwashing and psychological torture program during the 1950s and 1960s and ultimately
shaped US drug policy regarding psychedelics for over half a century. Based on extensive
archival research on both sides of the Atlantic TRIPPED is a wild unconventional postwar
history a spiritual sequel to Norman Ohler's NEW YORK TIMES bestseller BLITZED. Revealing the
close relationship and hidden connections between the Nazis and the early days of drugs in
America Ohler shares how this secret history held back therapeutic research of psychedelic
drugs for decades and eventually became part of the foundation of America's War on Drugs"--
