The true story of a music editor at VICE who tried to become the coolest reporter the company had ever had—by becoming an international drug smuggler.

In 2019, music reporter Slava P, an editor for VICE media, was sentenced to nine years in prison for recruiting friends into a scheme to smuggle cocaine from the U.S. into Australia. Five of them were already in jail. Immediately, Slava P was internationally infamous. Was he a victim of pressure to commit extreme acts for the sake of a good story? A product of a drug-obsessed work environment? Or a manipulator who pushed vulnerable young people into crime?

Here, Slava P tells his side of the story: what exactly happened and how the precarious, dog-eat-dog atmosphere of a media company can lead the young, the naive, and the ambitious into taking crazy risks.

Bad Trips is a story about drugs, hip-hop, influencers, and glamour, set against the backdrop of one of the world’s most influential news and entertainment sites, VICE. Its cast of beautiful young people and semi-famous rappers passes from the seediest apartments to the most elegant of private clubs. Slava P’s chronicling of his years at this famous hotbed of excess is a piercing insight into contemporary media culture.

All royalties from the sale of Bad Trips go to co-author Brian Whitney.