20/05/2026
WHAT WILL BE OUR NEXT HIGH? 💊
From the utopian ideals of L*D in the sixties to the grunge-infused nihilism of he**in in the nineties, culture and intoxication seem to have always mirrored each other. Might uncovering the nebulous relationship between drug and zeitgeist help us predict what the drug of the future might be?
In this article, FARSIGHT Editor August Liljenberg speaks to cultural historians and pharmacologists, as well as draws from his own experience with inebriation, to investigate the future of intoxication.
“As a universal pillar of social and cultural life, everywhere and throughout all time, intoxication is one of the human activities that strongly reflects the values, anxieties and structures of society.” So writes Stuart Walton, author of A Cultural History of Intoxication. “Its role as a central category of experience reflects the ways in which people seek to amend, or entirely displace, their apprehension of reality.”
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“If my fourteen-year-old self had been ahead of the curve, he would’ve chosen a drug of the future: a cocktail of Xanax, MDMA-lite, and Ozempic before a digital detox wellness retreat. Even so, the cultural zeitgeists I had identified with drugs of the past could not have been extrapolated into the future. Atomised doomscrollers do not create a homogenous culture, unfortunately, and when they do coalesce, it’s usually to lament the slow erasure of cultural novelty altogether.” - August Liljenberg
Read the full article 👉 Link in Bio
Author: August Liljenberg
Illustration: Juliana Toro
