I came across an article on the bbc about khat which is a mild narcotic when chewed.
It got me to thinking... Has anyone ever come across a story in which the main device is of a powerful/attractive drug that can only be used in a specific geographical location? What if the plant only grew in a specific region due to the complexities of soil composition and weather. You couldn't export it because the chemicals degrade too quickly. Only people within a short distance of the crop could use it. What would happen? Imagine the culture of that city, how the economy would be centralized on a single product. I could think of dozens of interesting ways to explore it.
If anyone wants to run with this idea, please go for it. I'm not much of a writer.
Also, once in a while I discuss with friends the characteristics of recreational drugs. As far as I know, there is no perfect drug. And even if I could create one, I'm not certain of all the characteristics. How powerful? How long lasting? No addition? (emotional addition is probably too difficult to eliminate, if a drug is going to feel any good) Method of ingestion? Ubiquity? More questions than that, I'm sure. Anyone else intrigued by the engineering of the perfect societal drug? I'm not talking about Soma, here. Soma definitely had its problems.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
For an interesting read on the social control uses of various drugs, check out Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley. It's a non-fiction look back at the possibilities explored in the original book. It has a whole chapter on drug use.
OK, kind of off topic. But it's interesting.
Dagonee
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
Not too off topic. Thanks =)
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
The concept made me think of The Currents of Space by Asimov. It's not a drug, but rather a plant that can only grow on one planet, and it did powerfully affect and basically effect the entire planetary culture and economy.
--Pop
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
This could be exported, but this did get me to thinking about the Spice from Dune and how the economy of an entire galaxy revolved around it.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
Dune was the first thing I thought of, but I only read it once, and don't know/remember enough about it to know whether or not there was any real analogousness (I don't care, I'm using that word, and you ain't stopping me) to it.
--Pop
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
I always thought the Can-D from Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch would make for a good time.
Posted by ak (Member # 90) on :
Wireheadism or tasps from Larry Niven's known space universe. Directly stimulate the pleasure centers in the brain at a distance with no surgery and no substance to ingest or inject. Can't be beat. Would be highly addictive, though. Being a wirehead is not pretty. But would breed itself out of the species fairly quickly as addicts tend to die of starvation or thirst quite rapidly.
[ April 12, 2004, 03:16 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
Larry Niven also writes about a crop called Tree of Life that's unique to its home planet. In the case of Tree of Life, it transforms adults (usually past the breeding stage) into Protectors -- see his Ringworld and Known Space books for more...
Posted by MoonRabbit (Member # 3652) on :
Anything by Terence McKenna is a good place to start. He wrote a whole series of non(?)fiction books on the role of psychoactive plants in human social evolution. Google his name and you'll find a wealth of information.
Food of the Gods is good, also check out The Archaic Revival.
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
Hm.
I'm glad for all the book suggestions guys, but that wasn't the purpose of the thread. I'm much MORE interested in the perfect drug, as well as the plot contrivances for a drug to only be available in one region (small, like a town and surrounding areas).
Most of these book suggestions sound like they are completely different from what I'm suggesting. So, while interesting, totally off topic =)
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
Khat is not truly a narcotic any more than cocaine is; both plants (khat vs. coca) and drugs (cocaine vs. cathinone) are stimulants.
My perfect drug: there is none. What is enjoyable in one situation is a liability in another. For example, 2C-E lasts anywhere from twelve to fourteen hours. That is a long time, and if you want to keep a normal sleep schedule you cannot take it after 10 am or so. If you have a six hour block of time starting at 4 pm, 2C-E is fairly worthless. It also causes a fairly intense experience. 2C-T-2, on the other hand, lasts only six hours or so and is mild enough that one can be social while under the influence. Is one "better" than the other? Not in my opinion. Sometimes you just want something different than before.
However, there are certain characteristics that most or all drugs should have as much as possible. They should be safe in the sense that long term use should not cause any irreversible problems. There should be a relatively linear dose-response curve. If overdose is possible, it should be able to be treated for several hours. Tolerance would not exist. The drugs should be sold over the counter, and taken orally.
If a drug was legal, mild (or even serious) physical addiction would be pretty much a non-issue, although nothing to desire. This is assuming that the drug is not actually causing irreparable harm to the body; if the drug resembled alcohol or meth more than morphine, physical addiction would be much worse. Hopefully better drugs that do not cause damage would be on the market. What would be helpful would be a lag period of at least a day of sobriety between the last ingested dose and any serious withdrawal.
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
Thanks. I hadn't thought about the dose-response curve much, and treatment of overdose.
Posted by Son_of_Priam (Member # 6411) on :
So basicly what you'd be looking for is modified THC, which to my knowledge is almost impossible to over dose especially through smoking, however it would have to be in a pill form so you're lungs wouldn't get damaged from smoke, and different doses could be made available, if one wanted to be under the influence of this drug for shorter or longer periods of time. this of course still leaves the problems with thc killing off your brain cells About your "super-drug" growing in only one part of the world, you could relate the growth of this drug to a specific chemical in an animals "waste". kind of like the kamodo dragons and how they are pretty much isolated on one island. I don't know how this whole scheme would work though, i'm not a botonist.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
btw, nice thread title
qaid, qi, qanat, tranq, sheqel, faqir, qwerty... some of my favorite words Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
mmm, q-with-no-u words.
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
No, not really. The drug I would probably take all the time if it existed would make me trip, but not too intensely. Enough to have fun alone, not enough to make other people not fun. Unfortunately, most classical psychedelics have at least moderate stimulant properties, which is a major downside to me. I want my sleep cycles to be as natural as possible, so I have to take my psychedelics early in the day. The latest it is possible for me to take them is if I have a day like today, where I can take a drug early in the afternoon that will keep me up for at least twelve hours, but have all of tomorrow to recover. Pot is nice as far as the recovery time goes, but can never approach the visuals of indoles or phenethylamines.
Also, my perfect drug would not induce two hours (or really any amount) of nausea before the desired effects set in. Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
Pot is indeed completely impossible to unintentionally overdose on. Even intentionally would probably require injection of enough pure THC to constitute an enormous percentage of the bloodstream as well. You would certainly have to be trying. However, if you take four monkeys, strap gas masks onto them, and give them four or five minutes of little actual oxygen but lots of THC (and whatever other miscellaneous chemicals come from burning pot) you will find quite a bit of brain damage... from oxygen deprivation. If you doctored the research correctly back in the seventies, you might even be able to write a very influential study, one that many would say was proof positive THC causes brain damage. Posted by Son_of_Priam (Member # 6411) on :
so maybe one could cross-bread a strain of thc with some other plant? maybe mix-and-mach desired effects from other plants. little bit of pot, little bit of coca, little bit of ketamine, maybe somehow nuetrelize some of the different effects of each do decrease the risk of any brain damage.
[ April 12, 2004, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: Son_of_Priam ]
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
wasn't the whole Dune series based on something like this?
fallow
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
the difference between my version and these other stories is a question of extreme localization.
In order for it to be interesting to me, I want to limit a drug to a specific locale: a city centered on the production of this crop. A world is too big. Dune's world was vast and largely uninhabited from what I remember.
I want bodies pressed up against each other amidst grime and riches. Noise, a richness of life, the stink of chamberpots.
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
how about a post-apocalyptic Detroit?
something that only grows in some kind of post-industrial slime? or the waste products of nuclear power plants on Lake Eerie?
fallow
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
i could totally see a cyber-punk version in which people get addicted to this byproduct of bacteria that live in the industrial slime. They lick the slime for the high.
Ew. =)
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
Or flip that right over on it's head.
Something that only grows in the gunk that bubbles up in the flowery garden center of an urban renewal project. Something the gentrified get hooked on.
fallow
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
The Dune stuff could go off world, but the people on Dune were pretty different. And there seemed to be lots of "atomosphere".
Maybe it's a deal where its an interaction of the drug and the local water. Something fairly obvious, but everyone who goes there to check it out gets so loose so quickly that they forget what they were trying to do. And their correspondence comes back "Dude, you gotta come down here. The apples are, like, so Red. :laughter:" Angry research administrator comes down to find out what the heck is going on and shortly finds himself in love again... with everything. P.S. Okay, so this was already a Star Trek episode at least 3 times that I know of.
[ April 13, 2004, 01:08 AM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by MoonRabbit (Member # 3652) on :
I mentioned Terence McKenna as a research tool because he writes quite plausibly about endemic plants leading to regionalized religions (or pre-religious beliefs), and thus to cultural development.
As for a drug being confined to a particular city, think of Salvia divinorum: Until recently, only one or two clones were known to exist, and the plants were endemic to a very small area in Mexico. The plants don't set seed in the wild, and the only plants in existence were those that the shaman(s) had propagated. The origins of the plant were shrouded in mystery.
All you would need is a geographic or climatic event to isolate a population of a particular plant, wait a few centuries, and wa la - a reproductively isolated population with potentially altered chemistry. Combine this with selective breeding by the isolated human population, and...
![[Smile]](smile.gif)