This book is a history of illicit drug use in America in the second half of the twentieth century and a personal journey through the drug experience. It's the story of how America got high, the epic tale of how the American Century transformed into the Great Stoned Age. It tells this story by weaving together first-person accounts and historical background into a narrative vast in scope yet rich in detail. Among those who describe their experiments with consciousness are Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Robert Stone, Wavy Gravy, Grace Slick, Oliver Stone, Peter Coyote, David Crosby, and many others from Haight Ashbury to Studio 54 to housing projects and rave warehouses. But the book does not neglect the recovery movement, the war on drugs, and the ongoing debate over drug policy. And even as Martin Torgoff tells the story of his own addiction and recovery, he neither romanticizes nor demonizes drugs. If he finds them less dangerous than the moral crusaders say they are, he also finds them less benign than advocates insist.