1.

Charles Dickens – Opium

When this famous author walked its streets, London was rife with opium dens. He even described them in his final unfinished work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dickens, like many other famous names of the Victorian era, was addicted to an opium tincture known as laudanum for many years and used the drug heavily right up to the time of his death (by massive stroke).

2.

Morgan Freeman – Marijuana

“Never give up the ganja,” said the Academy Award-winning actor in an interview with The Guardian. He also called it God’s own weed and talked of the “burning bush.”

3.

Vincent van Gogh – Absinthe and Digitalis

It’s well known that van Gogh, while an extremely talented artist, had a bit of a wacky side. (Remember the ear thing?) What’s not as well known is how his drugs of choice, the spirit absinthe and the prescribed drug digitalis, may have influenced both his work and his behavior.

Van Gogh used both absinthe and digitalis to treat his epilepsy, anxiety, and depression. Unfortunately both substances can cause one to see objects in yellow or yellow spots. Which kind of explains A LOT about his paintings. (Just blew your mind there, didn’t I?”

4.

Steve Jobs – LSD

Before he changed the course of technology as we know it, Steve Jobs was just another dude, trippin’ balls in his dorm room while blasting Pink Floyd. “We were monk-wannabes,” said Daniel Kottke, fellow Reed College alum and regular dosing buddy. According to Kottke, ‘they were on a quest to better understand consciousness using an LSD varietal known as Orange Sunshine as their Sherpa.’

5.

Sherlock Holmes – Cocaine and Morphine (aka Speedball)

No, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a real person. But he was still a brilliant mind and most people don’t realize that in the books, a regular drug user. Holmes used cocaine and morphine to escape, as he said, from “the dull routine of existence” and as a way to stimulate “his ‘overactive’ brain in periods when he did not have interesting cases to solve.”

6.

Adolph Hitler – Crystal Meth

According to a 47-page U.S. military dossier, a doctor named Theodor Morell would shoot the Fuhrer up with barbiturate tranquilizers, morphine, bulls’ semen, a pill that contained crystal meth, and other drugs, depending on Hitler’s momentary needs, the Daily Mail reports. Incredible accounts claim that Hitler downed crystal meth before a 1943 meeting with Mussolini in which he ranted for two hours, and took nine shots of methamphetamine in his last days in the bunker.

7.

Sigmund Freud – Cocaine

It was 1884 when the Father of modern psychoanalysis ordered his first gram of cocaine from the local apothecary. “In my last serious depression I took cocaine again and a small dose lifted me to the heights in a wonderful fashion. I am just now collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance,” he later wrote to his fiancee.

8.

Martha Stewart – Marijuana

“Of course I know how to roll a joint,” the queen of all things DIY told in an interview with Andy Cohen on Bravo. She was a foxy model in the sixties, so I don’t doubt Stewart puff, puff, passed a few.

9.

Francis Crick – LSD

Francis Crick is the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics. After his death in 2004, it became known that he was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced the double-helix structure of DNA nearly 50 years ago. To which anyone who’s taken acid will say, “duh.”

10.

Thomas Edison – Cocaine Elixers

In 1863, French chemist Angelo Mariani invented “Vin Mariani,” a Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves, the active ingredient in cocaine. Edison was one of many people of the period known to regularly consume this cocaine-laced elixir. Which probably explains why he was a well-known insomniac.

11.

Paul Erdos – Amphetamines

Hungarian Paul Erdos was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century. Known for his eccentric lifestyle, and chronic depression, Erdos took amphetamines almost every day for the last 25 years of his life.

12.

Carl Sagan – Marijuana

Sagan may be the only one in the universe that can be described as an astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, and pothead. “The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before,” he wrote. “The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I’m down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse.”

13.

Andy Warhol – Adderall

This legendary artist frequently abused the drug Obetrol, a diet pill that let him stay awake all night. The modern-day version of Obetrol is marketed today as Adderall (and given to kids, I might add).

14.

Humphry Davy – Nitrous Oxide (aka Laughing Gas)

Davy was a surgeon and chemist perhaps best known for inventing the ‘Davy’ safety lamp used by early coal miners. Less well known was his accidental discovery of (and subsequent indulgence in) nitrous oxide.

“Nothing Exists But Thoughts!” Davy is said to have exclaimed, off his head on 57 liters of nitrous oxide.

15.

Stephen King – A Little Bit Of Everything

According to The Watershed, “King’s choice was to mix a cocktail of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, beer, tobacco, and marijuana to get him through the day. He even admits he doesn’t remember writing some of his works.” I wish my blackouts turned me into a best-selling author.

16.

Benjamin Franklin – Opiates

“Colonists regarded opium as a familiar resource for pain relief. Benjamin Franklin regularly took laudanum opium in alcohol extract-to alleviate the pain of kidney stones during the last few years of his life.”

17.

Bela Lugosi – Heroin

You probably know Bela Lugosi as the man who played “Dracula” in lots of old horror movies. You probably don’t know that the man depended on heroin just like his character depended on blood. To his credit, Lugosi was the first Hollywood celebrity to publicly admit his drug problems and enter rehab. Although he tragically died a year later, Dracula died clean.

18.

Howard Hughes – Codeine and Valium

Howard Hughes helped design numerous aircrafts, created and directed a number of films, and even made a prototype hospital bed that was the basis of those used today. Unfortunately, numerous crashes in experimental aircraft took their toll on his health, and he eventually became fond of injecting opiates into the muscle–a nasty business indeed.

19.

Oliver Stone – Marijuana

The legendary director of such flicks as “Platoon” and “Natural Born Killers” has “smoked great marijuana all over the world, from Vietnam and Thailand to Jamaica and South Sudan. But the filmmaker says the best weed is made in the USA and that pot could be a huge growth industry for taxpayers if it were legalized,” reports the Huffington Post.

20.

Phil Jackson – Marijuana

If you only know Phil Jackson as the extraordinary coach of both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, you might be surprised to see pics of him from his freewheeling player days. “In 1975 he wrote “Maverick,” a memoir about his days playing in the NBA. In it, among other things, Jackson spoke frankly about marijuana use,” Salon reported.