[…] Of the hundreds of books, articles, essays, monographs and dissertations on Benjamin (over 3000 exist), only a handful discuss the writings on hashish and opium and the Drogenversuche [drug experiments] and none of them situate the experiments within a historical context. When Benjamin became a „test subject,“ he also became part of a long-forgotten community, the Weimar Republic’s psychonautic avant-garde, which included Benjamin’s friend, Ernst Bloch, his cousin Egon Wissing and Egon’s wife, Gert. With the synthesis of mescaline from peyote by Arthur Heffter in 1896-1897, Germany became the leader in psychopharmacological research.

[Source: „From ‚Rausch‘ to Rebellion: Walter Benjamin’s On Hashish and the Aesthetic Dimensions of Prohibitionist Realism“ – An introductory essay by Scott J. Thompson => http://www.wbenjamin.org/rausch.html]