We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby and he moved to San Francisco immersing himself in the drug and hippie culture that was taking root in the area. invasion of Grenada but would not discuss these experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear 20 years later. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism.

He subsequently joined the United States Air Force before moving into journalism. Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18 1937 – February 20 2005) was an American author and journalist. The work he remains best known for is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1972) a rumination on the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement.