Print of the poster for Starseed Benefits 'See' with Allen Ginsberg, Barry Melton, Michael McClure and the Sufi Choir, 1973.

Starseed is a 1973 book by Timothy Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996), an American psychologist and writer known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. He was "a hero of American consciousness", according to Allen Ginsberg.

In 1973, Leary was sent to Folsom Prison in California, and put in solitary confinement.

Eugène Grasset : Morphinomane [Morphine addict], from L’Album d’estampes originales de la Galerie Vollard, 1897.  Color lithograph.

Samuel Goldwyn presents Jack Pickford in 'The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come'. Mary Pickford's younger brother Jack became a silent screen star in his own right but his troubled private life was riddled with substance abuse and he would not fulfil his early potential. Date: 1917.

Art nouveau poster advertisement for the Narcoti Chemical Co., Springfield, Mass., announcing cure for the tobacco habit, showing a demon or devil-like tobacco plant being skewered by a knight on horseback. Library of Congress. Date: 1895

Dudley Hardy - Advert for Hall's Coca Wine - The Elixir of Life c.1915.

Coca wine is an alcoholic beverage combining wine with cocaine. The advert for Hall's advised:

'The wine is a 'restorative, especially after influenza and combats sleeplessness, bronchitis, neuralgia, anaemia, mental fatigue, exhaustion and menstrual disorders ("sickness, so common to ladies").'

At the end of the 19th century, the fear of drug abuse made coca-based drinks less popular. This led to the prohibition of cocaine in the United States in 1914 via the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, and the removal of cocaine from coca wine, though coca leaf remained. Coca wine itself became illegal in the United States when its other main drug, alcohol, was banned just a few years later with Eighteenth Amendment in 1920.

Via: The Wellcome Collection

‘When bachelor dens cast over waking hours a loneliness so deep’ , stereographic photographic print by Underwood & Underwood, USA , ca. 1904 . Library of Congress 

Young man with opium pipe reclining on a sofa covered with furs.

‘King of the Opium Ring : Big Scenic Sensation’ by Chas. E. Blaney & Chas. A. Taylor H.C. Miner Litho. co. NYC , ca. 1899 Theatre Poster