Stuart Walton has written for the Observer and the Sunday Telegraph as well as for numerous magazines. He has been described by the Independent as the writer, with Irvine Welsh, who has done most to change our views on drugs.

His work includes a widely acclaimed cultural history of drink and drugs (now published for the first time in ebook format as Intoxicology), A Natural History of Human Emotions, and In The Realm of the Senses: A Materialist Theory of Seeing and Feeling. His work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Russian, Chinese and Korean.