Famous speeders

[WrtngCocaineTutorial]

I know of two. First there's our late president John f. kennedy who got injected before making important speeches
and the german sweetheart adolf hitler who got injections from his doctor whenever he wanted it

guess much of their carisma really came in a can (or needle lol)

Reputation Comments on this post:

Good and funny threat

[Ganesha]

There was Paul Erdös, a Hungarian mathematician.
One of his friends bet him $500 that he could not stop taking amphetamine for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that mathematics had been set back by a month.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Funny, didnt know that :)

[psychedelaholic]

Originally Posted by Ganesha

There was Paul Erdös, a Hungarian mathematician.
One of his friends bet him $500 that he could not stop taking amphetamine for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that mathematics had been set back by a month.

Haha thats pretty funny, bet as soon as that month was up that $500 went straight back into buying more amph.

Reputation Comments on this post:

lol yes

[Beeker]

There are a whole slew of people who used amphetamines to help with their careers. I wouldn't call them "speeders" or "tweekers" though as they had a path and amphetamines (one hokey joke maybe) sped them along.

JFK used amphetamines as did Hitler though Hitler was injected Meth daily by his doctor Morell. Many writers have used prescription amphetamines, including me.

The list goes on and on: Lenny Bruce, Charlie Parker, Judie Garland, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden. You could probably write a large book about just this subject.

If you consider cocaine as well then you add Steven King, Freud. Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde was written in six days under Cocaine intoxication.

Hell, let me quote a line from Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Sign of Four or "The Mark of the Timber Toe"

"Sherlock Holmes took his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt cuff...the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks...sank back into the velvet lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction."

Reputation Comments on this post:

	interesting.. I just zapped through channels and saw some on the discovery channel
	Great post, especially if that's true about the book

[Nature Boy]

Fictional, but famous none-the-less.

[jesusfreak666er]

like said above, charlie parker liked his amps, he took benzedrine in his coffee everyday. A lot of writers from the 50-60s swim believes as well.

[Nature Boy]

Lemmy Kilmister, of bands Motorhead and Hawkwind, is another well-known amphetamine user. He was forced to leave Hawkwind in the early 70's when busted on the Canadian border with what was thought to be a substantial quantity of cocaine but lab analysis deduced that it was speed. Motorhead, the name of his band (that he sings, writes songs and plays bass for), comes from the British slang word for an amphetamine user and many of the band's songs have speed references in them.

Reputation Comments on this post:

lol. yes the motorheads were motorheads

[Nahbus]

I think SWIM takes the cake. Read all those threads about him, he's mentioned in almost every single one!

[bewilderment]

It's pretty well-known that Sigmund Freud was a coke-head. Considering the connection between coke and arousal, having all of his theories based on sexually related things makes a lot of sense.

[hyperlite]

There's no way that our Presidents don't get through the day without AMPIN' up......damn hypocrites

[doppey]

Johnny Cash

[Octo42o]

Adolf Hitler had 5 shots of Meth Daily, which probably lead to some bad decissions during the war. Japan and Nazi armies were given Meth so they could fight for days(Blitzkrieg). US army gave amps to soldiers during the Korean, probably why it was the first war they lost, haha.Lou Reed was a famous Speed/Heroin addict. Johnny Cash and his black beauty addiction, god to live during those times.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	5shot's of meth daily! interesting
	easy there fella.

[Forthesevenlakes]

i'd toss into the list...ulysses s. grant. he used cocaine while writing his memoirs and once stated that "the concusion that i have come to in my case is: taken properly it gives a wonderful amount of relief from pain...i will try to limit its use. this latter you know how hard it is to do."

abraham lincoln is purported to have used cocaine in a preparation to stimulate beard growth.

jack kerouac used benzedrine while writing on the road.

any others?

[bewilderment]

Oh yeah, Neal Cassady and the Merry Pranksters definately...don't know about Kesey because it didn't tell about what substances he was using in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", but the pranksters seemed to always be smoking weed and taking speed. Cassady seemed mainly into the speed (and it states in the book, he's a speed freak) which is probably why he was the one always driving the bus.

[Forthesevenlakes]

surprised this didnt come up already, but Hunter S. Thompson mentions alot of speed use in his non-fear and loathing in las vegas books. cant remember if its hell's angels or one of the others that mentions an incident of a bunch of speed pills falling out at a customs checkpoint, but definitely Thompson.

President William McKinley evidently was a habitual drinker of coca wine and even gave an endorsement to the company supplying him, as did Frederic Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty...stating that if he had been drinking coca wine while sculpting, "the Statue of Liberty would have attained the height of several hundred metres."

SWIM is tempted to say that FDR was on speed during the second world war, due to reports of him smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day, but he has no real proof.

[speedman]

Johnny Cash.

[fishinabottle]

Heinrich Böll (ab)used Pervitin (meth) during the war and most probably later too.

[caesar]

Elvis !!!!!

[Octo42o]

Pretty much any country/rock n roll singer in the 50s used speed, haha Elvis Introduced Johnny Cash to live in the fast lane. Some great music from their come downs.

[Barelled01]

Kerouac definately when he wrote his books. He used to get them perscribed and write a book in like 16 days

[Fuzz]

the driver for the merry pranksters.... the superhero in jack keorouc's on the road (dean m.) who's real name was neal cassidy!!! he was the son of a wino father.He live thru the beat jazzy generation and went on to live the radical 60's along with the pranksters and their parties and excursion thourhgt the continental USA!!! ... I read he died of overdose/heart failure because he was chasing after a train one cold morining while on speed. I am guessing that it was plain amphetamines, no mention of methamphetamine use. He also used lsd with the trippers..... I am also pretty sure that Ken kesey, the intrepid traveler dosed some speed in his day.
electric kool aid acid test* a must read.

sooo the famous... to me... Johny Cash Neal Cassidy...
not so sure for famous female speeders... marlyn monroe maybe?

[enquirewithin]

Originally Posted by Nature Boy

Lemmy Kilmister, of bands Motorhead and Hawkwind, is another well-known amphetamine user. He was forced to leave Hawkwind in the early 70's when busted on the Canadian border with what was thought to be a substantial quantity of cocaine but lab analysis deduced that it was speed. Motorhead, the name of his band (that he sings, writes songs and plays bass for), comes from the British slang word for an amphetamine user and many of the band's songs have speed references in them.

Hold on, Lemmy may not have been the Iron Man he seems after all. What do those ENOURMOUS letters say on the packets?

[FrankenChrist]

Jack Kerouac rambled On the road on a typewriter under amphetamines. Probably in one sitting, too...

Edit: beaten like a red headed step child

[Panthers007]

Kerouac was writing on hard liquor and amphetamines - which were easy to get in the 1950's in most nations involved in WWII. It was the drink that ultimately finished him off. But this demise was likely "Sped-Up" due to the other factor.

Old Speed-Freaks? There don't seem to be any. "Live Fast. Die Young. Leave a Clean Corpse." We in the last generation tried to warn the young ones of today about this phenomena. If this generation is asleep and speeding - don't blame us when you kick. Speed Kills!

[enquirewithin]

Lou Reed- "Watch that speedfeak, watch that speedfreak, gonna shoot it up every night of the week". Reed shot up speed for years and amazingly has quit and is alive a well (and obnoxious) today.

Jean Paul Satre found he wrote better on benzedrine. Graham Green wrote one his lesser novel on speed.

William Burroughs, Jnr, who wrote Kentucky Ham and Speed about this experiences. Mrs Burroughs was speeding through her pregnancy (before Bill, Sr accidentally shot her in the head). He drank himself to death long before his heroin addict fathers' demise.

Philip K Dick wrote most of his wonderful novels on methedrine. Surprisingly speed suited his surreal paranoid style. He started off on a doctor's prescription (and stealing his freind's pills) and moved on to swallowing handfuls of black market ones. That he died of a stroke in his fifties surely was to do with his speed abuse. But what a writer!!