Comparison Of Drugs In Taipei By Tao Lin And A Scanner Darkly

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The way that drugs, especially neurotransmitters such as Xanax, are characterized and stigmatized has changed in A Scanner Darkly, a 1977 novel, compared to Taipei, a 2013 one. In this almost 50-year difference, these novels reflect the current view of drugs at the time they were written, but also give a unique look into just how quickly man’s perception of drugs has been altered. In Taipei by Tao Lin and A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, the drugs taken in the novels, whether the several “blockbuster drugs” such as Adderall and MDMA in Taipei or cannabis and the fictional “Substance D” in A Scanner Darkly, create a distancing effect from others as well as the user themselves. In contrast, the drug “Substance D” is so heavily regarded as …show more content…

When Paul sits in a café surrounded by other people, he cannot help but feel the weight of this upon him: “Paul’s main feeling… in a café with six to eight strangers, staring at his hands wrapped tightly around his teacup, was an excruciating combination of social anxiety and, as the MDMA stopped working, disintegrating functioning…” (Lin 122). Without the drug’s effects, he begins to feel more anxious and disconnected from the people that share the space with him. Although he does not interact with any of them, these intense, anxious feelings overwhelm him nonetheless. In a way, the drugs Paul takes make him feel more “human”, or at least be able to somewhat connect with the people around …show more content…

Although in both novels the drugs are taken at about the same rate by the characters, Substance D has a much more visibly negative effect on the user, therefore making it the drug that agents seek to eliminate. When Bob Arctor is undercover as Fred during the speech he gives at the “Gentlemen of the Anaheim Lions Club”, he speaks on the destructiveness of the drug on people: “The identity of the purveyors of the poisons concocted of brain-destructive filth shot daily, orally taken daily, smoked daily by several million men and women--or rather, that were once men and women-- is gradually being unraveled” (14). Calling the drugs “poisons”, “filth”, and “brain-destructive”, the blame is turned on the “purveyors” or rather large companies that manufacture and distribute the drugs rather than the users or even low-level dealers. Regardless, the drug itself is still criminalized and every character in the novel knows the deadly effects it could have on their brain and

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