In Search of Smiles: Alston Hughes, LSD Counterculture, Operation Julie and Britain's Illicit Drug Networks

Alston Hughes, known as Smiles, is presented as a key figure in Britain’s late twentieth-century LSD counterculture and illicit drug networks. The biography follows his movement from a tough postwar Manchester upbringing through free festivals, hashish smuggling, travel in South Asia, and life in the Welsh village of Llanddewi Brefi. It focuses particularly on his involvement with the Microdot Gang conspiracy, in which he shifted millions of LSD doses, and his 1977 arrest during Operation Julie, the police investigation that exposed what was then the largest LSD manufacturing and distribution operation of its kind. Based on interviews, the book combines the history of a major drug network with an intimate account of Hughes’ relationships, community, and encounters with authorities.