Krokodil

[Anders]

I wouldn't put too much stock in what a 'normal' dose is - you develop tolerance to opiates very quickly.

[Gwythaint]

I found this inspiring enough to apply a GURPS:breaking bad situation to my DF game on rpol.net. Paut, involving Ibis blood, must be imported to the northern areas where thosr waterfowl ate scarce. I have a mage, skilled in food, water and earth colleges who recognizes that ingredient as being subjectively associated with Thoth, and goes instead to substitute albumen from ravens, as they are associated with Odin, the norse god of magic. His decision to go woth Essential water indtead of purifiedwater boosts the egfects, so some of his batches produce douple FP replenishment. However, uding more than one dose a day causes spectacular side effects. In addition to a progressive fimming of sight in one eye, heavy users of "blue paut" are afflicted with spontaneous spell effects, from images of the past to death vision to magesight, dream viewing and projection to see invisible, but run a scaled risk of ladting loss of vision to flashbacks and nightmares.

[J. Edward Tremlett]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Personally I'm hoping he meant:

"great an over the top drug that seems more at home in a fictional dystopian cyberpunk future, but that I can now name check in my contemporary setting without appearing to be unrealistic"


I hope!

Yep, pretty much.

I see that I ruffled some feathers, but don't worry. I haven't turned into everyone's favorite social darwinist for hire, yet.

Anyone who reads my articles or fiction knows I'm into body horror, especially when it's self-inflicted. I have a fascination for how and why people take themselves apart.

Case in point: I had a short little thing I threw up on RPG.net when I was out of my mind and bored at work about injecting tiny alien squid babies into your veins, and the fun things they did. But I can't find it. Darn site has no search function and someone else came up with "injectapod." darn

So something like krokodil, where people know it's really going to screw their external bodies up but do it anyway? That's a gold mine for me on a couple different levels. Kind of like Jenkem, or making vodka using your own amputated limbs.

Too much David Cronenberg? Not enough Mister Rogers? We have no idea. But it pays the bills and scares the neighbors. 'Merica!

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by J. Edward Tremlett

...
So something like krokodil, where people know it's really going to screw their external bodies up but do it anyway? That's a gold mine for me on a couple different levels. Kind of like Jenkem, or making vodka using your own amputated limbs.
...

Isn't that really any different from every unhealthy behavior except maybe one of time scale? Doctors often tell patients to stop doing X or they will die.


(No comment on the silly Jenkem hoax)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

(No comment on the silly Jenkem hoax)

Is it a hoax? The notion that it's a concern in the US was based on a hoax, yes, but I've never seen anything that suggests it's not a practice used by street children in sub-Saharan Africa.

[J. Edward Tremlett]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

(No comment on the silly Jenkem hoax)

It wasn't a hoax in Africa. They were using it there, albeit in small numbers in one area. Maybe the users realized it was a poopy way to get high. Maybe they went too far and couldn't come back.

The hoax part developed when people in America learned about it and someone circulated the story that people were doing it in the good ol' heartland, too. Of course, we know what that was full of.

[tantric]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Isn't that really any different from every unhealthy behavior except maybe one of time scale? Doctors often tell patients to stop doing X or they will die.


(No comment on the silly Jenkem hoax)

People would smoke less if cigarettes caused acne instead of cancer. Humans beings - go figure.

I read up on krok - even though they purify the codeine to start the reaction, they don't purify the end product and they mix it with promethazine, which should not be injected. I'm thinking this will be a problem in the UK and other countries that sell OTC dihydrocodeine.

[J. Edward Tremlett]

Originally Posted by tantric

People would smoke less if cigarettes caused acne instead of cancer. Humans beings - go figure.

YES. that's exactly my point. Many things screw us up and we have no idea because we can't see it happening, so we keep doing it. But here's something that very visibly destroys you, and yet you keep doing it.

How strong of a hold does it have to have upon you? Or how far gone do you have to be to keep doing it? How desperate?

Those are issues that, to try and bring this back to the OP, would factor into how bad of a disadvantage this stuff is

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by J. Edward Tremlett

How strong of a hold does it have to have upon you? Or how far gone do you have to be to keep doing it? How desperate?

I think the deal is that if you are already addicted to heroine and you can't afford it, then this starts looking like a good deal especially if you rationalize it as something you are only going to let yourself do once. Why people start heroine in the first place is a mystery to me, though.

I once worked with a guy, that one night turned to me and said, "I think I'm going to start doing speed." I said, "Why, do these crazy tweekers that come in here seem like role models to you?" He laughed. A month later he refused to come into work because "the FBI was wiretapping his brain". I still am boggled by why somebody would willingly choose to do this to himself.

[J. Edward Tremlett]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I think the deal is that if you are already addicted to heroine and you can't afford it, then this starts looking like a good deal especially if you rationalize it as something you are only going to let yourself do once.

Oh yes. "just once, and I'll kick." An epitaph for us all.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Why people start heroine in the first place is a mystery to me, though.

The first time you shoot it you feel like you just had sex with god. You were on top of the world and everything made sense. You were wrapped in a warm blanket and someone loved you perfectly and totally.

That's the first time, and you never feel like that, again -- not exactly. But you keep coming back to the needle and hoping that you'll feel even a fraction of that. And indeed, you do, but the kiss gets shorter and the sex gets sloppier and the blanket's full of holes and not nearly as warm.

By this point, you look like Jesus on a cross and wonder if you'll ever be able to eat anything ever again. But you don't care. God and love and the warm are waiting for you, again and again.

And that's why it's so hard to kick. That and the withdrawl symptoms and all, of course. But once you wrap it around your brain that your life is an illusion, and only the time spent on the nod matters, why would you go back any longer than you had to?

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I once worked with a guy, that one night turned to me and said, "I think I'm going to start doing speed." I said, "Why, do these crazy tweekers that come in here seem like role models to you?" He laughed. A month later he refused to come into work because "the FBI was wiretapping his brain".

A legitimate concern in days to come. Sooner or later they will find ways to wiretap our bloodstream. How do they make sure they're tapping the right people? Put the nano-recorders in something the right people will ingest.