In a scene from the Stephen King novel Pet Sematary, the main character, Dr. Louis Creed, swallows a Tuinal to calm himself down. Creed then recalls a friend from medical school with a particular fondness for Tuinal, which the friend dubbed “the Toonerville trolley,” or “tooners” for short.
In “The Old Main Drag”, a song from The Pogues’ 1985 album Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, the drug is name-checked: If you didn’t have the money, you’d cajole and you’d beg / There was always lots of Tuinal on the old main drag.
In the Hawkwind song “Lost Johnny”, the drug appears in the verse “We’re all taking Tuinal to murder our young dreams.” Later, when Motörhead performed the song, the verse became “We’re all shooting Tuinal to murder all your dreams.”
In John Betjeman’s poem “Shattered Image” (1970), an accused child molestor wonders how many of his Tuinal - used, presumably, as a recreational depressant - it will take to kill himself.
In Grace Paley’s poem “On the Fourth Floor” a boy screams to his girl that of sixteen Tuinal, he cannot account for two.
In Andrew Holleran’s novel Dancer from the Dance (1978) a case of overdose in a discotheque is mentioned: “The boy passed out on the sofa from an overdose of Tuinols [sic] was a Puerto Rican who washed dishes in the employees’ cafeteria at CBS, but the doctor bending over him had treated presidents.” (40)
In The Ramones song Psycho Therapy, Joey Ramone sings in the second verse “I like taking Tuinal / It keeps me edgy and mean / I’m a teenage schizoid / I’m a teenage dope fiend”.
The Queers song Feeling So Groovy has the verse “I’m really not that dumb you know / got lots of beer and Tuinals”.
In the movie Fight Club, Jacks’ narration refers to “red and blue Tuinals” when he sees the doctor about his insomnia.
In the Lou Reed song “New Sensations” he sings “It’s easy enough to tell what is wrong, but that’s not what I want to hear all night long, some people are like human Tuinals.”
In the W.A.S.P song “Doctor Rockter”, the lyrics read “Cocaine, Codine, 714, a tuinol blindfold just what I need”.
American writer/poet/singer Jim Carroll is reputed to be the voice heard asking an anonymous patron about the availability of Tuinals between songs on The Velvet Underground’s “Live At Max’s Kansas City” album.