what drug or drugs debilitated Philip K Dick's friends?

Question

at the end of A Scanner Darkly, the movie with the weird animation, there is a dedication to many deceased and even more with massive irreversible brain damage and the things of that nature. Do you know what drugs they were,
? was it substance D and maybe it exists? or was it just a dedication to burned out friends of his? thanks

Answer 1

I've enjoyed Dick's SF novels for years and had heard that he experimented with various hallucinogenic drugs. I never bothered to check the facts before. I googled him and got several sites, a few of which alluded to abuse of pain killers. Scriptorium (link below) was a little more forthcoming:

"Two novels heavily inspired by the growing drug culture, part of their genesis sprang from Dick’s own pharmaceutical experiments beyond his usual fondness for amphetamines. "
[In the 70s] "He began experimenting with a variety of pills..."
"The resulting story [A Scanner Darkly] is a nightmare journey through a world of fractured identities and paranoia; made more sharply poignant by Dick’s closing dedication to fifteen friends lost as drug addicts and acid [= LSD] casualties."

The drug in "A Scanner Darkly" was the hallucinogenic Can-D, which gave users the illusion of living in better conditions than they actually did.