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Old 09-19-2007, 05:18 PM   #31
Lonewulf
 
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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Originally Posted by whswhs
(filling the air around you with odorous vapors as a dominance mechanism)
Y'know, that didn't actually ever cross my mind.
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Old 09-20-2007, 06:30 AM   #32
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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There are weird cases like Joni Mitchell, who apparently smoked her first cigarette while she was in grade school and instantly loved it, without the painful learning curve that a lot of new smokers go through.
My dad and I are like that, too. My dad started smoking somewhen around the age of five. Stole cigarettes from his much older brother, who was in turn stealing them from their father. Nobody cottoned on until he walked into the family room at the age of six and announced he was giving up smoking.

He smoked marijuana and tobacco in college (like a lot of other people at the time) and gave them both up just as easily when my mother got pregnant.

I had my first cigarettes in high school, and chain smoked three in a row without any ill effects at all. What scared me was how much I liked it - it was the same compulsive reaching-for-another that I have with chips, popcorn, and chocolates, only even at 15 I was pretty sure the cigarettes were worse for me (also, more expensive, and illegal for me to buy).

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Originally Posted by whswhs
But there also seems to be a definite chemical reward aspect, both in that a lot of smokers find it painfully hard to quit and in that many people smoke not only for pleasure but for stress relief and the like.
I can't say that I ever "took up smoking" because I stopped after that first experiment because of how scary-easy my reaction to it was. But I actually get a mild-to-moderate craving for a cigarette every now and then, even though I have severe asthma these days and would probably need to take an immediate trip to the hospital if I ever smoked one.

I never made a habit out of it, and I shouldn't have had enough to form a chemical addiction, but I still get cravings (comparable to suddenly really wanting a chocolate - annoying but not uncontrolable). There's a chemical reward in there, and I'm apparently one of those people who is extremely vulnerable to being seduced by it.
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Old 09-21-2007, 03:26 AM   #33
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

Well, citing a couple of media examples, there's smoking in Event Horizon and Bladerunner. However, in the latter case the film is meant to be future-noir and one of the smokers is a replicant.

Aliens coming to Earth have gotten hooked on tobacco and caffine on the original Outer Limits ("Controlled Experiment") and Twilight Zone ("Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up"). Clearly a case of a new market for a product losing its old market; much like China today.

Plus, there's the possibility of finding or developing new types of plants to dry out, chop up, and smoke. (No,no, not _that_ plant. That already exists. And is, of course, illegal.) Old products can sometimes be re-invented in new forms. The future holds new possibilities for new vices.
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Old 09-21-2007, 03:51 AM   #34
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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Plus, there's the possibility of finding or developing new types of plants to dry out, chop up, and smoke. (No,no, not _that_ plant. That already exists. And is, of course, illegal.)
In some states, it's only illegal because of federal strong-arming. And it's not illegal in some countries. ;)
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Old 09-21-2007, 06:40 AM   #35
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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In some states, it's only illegal because of federal strong-arming. And it's not illegal in some countries.
I have tended to assume that by 2100, drug prohibition has largely been abandoned, at least in fourth and fifth wave nations. Insert arguments about ineffectiveness, rise of black markets, support for armed criminal groups to substitute for unavailable law enforcement in such markets, corruption of police forces by wealthy drug dealers, use of drug profits to fund terrorism, encouragement of general contempt for the law, and the classical maxim about not passing laws that you can't expect to enforce. The more regulative societies presumably use memetics to discourage drug use; rather than making it a crime, make it uncool.

We had a scene in Whispers where one of the characters was emotionally off balance, and an inquiry about chemical aid led to her being dispensed some THC over the counter.

On the other hand, when I invented the Ataractic movement, I explicitly had them reject all "chemical reward" motives, whether supplied by consuming the substances from external sources or by engaging in activities that caused the brain to generate them. Governments with concerns about drug use might be encouraging such neopuritan movements.

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Old 09-21-2007, 06:55 AM   #36
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Once again, this falls down to biase. Those that are for the war on drugs will probably think that drugs will be illegal, and that there might even be more strict laws (who knows; maybe alcohol was replaced with synthetic alcohol in an enlightened society). Those that are against the war on drugs will probably envision a future where more drugs are made available (albeit regulated). I fall into the latter group.

It's hard to have an unbiased "view of the future", honestly. Because we're here in the present, with opinions based in the present.
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Old 09-21-2007, 11:42 AM   #37
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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Those that are against the war on drugs will probably envision a future where more drugs are made available (albeit regulated).
Really, you don't have to be in favour of drugs to think that the "War on Drugs" is a bad idea. As Bill said, the main point is more that it pretty clearly doesn't work. Project current trends forward 93 years with unchanged policies, and you get... Well, a pretty untenable situation. Ergo, changed policies, which might even lead to less drug use.

(And maybe even the abandonment of failed rhetorical devices such as "The War on [Abstract Noun]". We can hope.)

But TS tends to assume more the replacement of clunky "natural" drugs with something smarter and more controllable. So one might see drug use, but probably not any drug which anyone here has heard of - at least in Fifth Wave areas.
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Old 09-21-2007, 11:59 AM   #38
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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Really, you don't have to be in favour of drugs to think that the "War on Drugs" is a bad idea. As Bill said, the main point is more that it pretty clearly doesn't work. Project current trends forward 93 years with unchanged policies, and you get... Well, a pretty untenable situation. Ergo, changed policies, which might even lead to less drug use.

(And maybe even the abandonment of failed rhetorical devices such as "The War on [Abstract Noun]". We can hope.)

But TS tends to assume more the replacement of clunky "natural" drugs with something smarter and more controllable. So one might see drug use, but probably not any drug which anyone here has heard of - at least in Fifth Wave areas.
Who needs illicit drugs when the legal ones actually WORK?
That's my view.
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Old 09-21-2007, 12:47 PM   #39
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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Originally Posted by whswhs
I have tended to assume that by 2100, drug prohibition has largely been abandoned, at least in fourth and fifth wave nations. (snip)

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Originally Posted by Lonewulf
Once again, this falls down to biase. Those that are for the war on drugs will probably think that drugs will be illegal, and that there might even be more strict laws (who knows; maybe alcohol was replaced with synthetic alcohol in an enlightened society). Those that are against the war on drugs will probably envision a future where more drugs are made available (albeit regulated). I fall into the latter group.

It's hard to have an unbiased "view of the future", honestly. Because we're here in the present, with opinions based in the present.)
Actually, on p. 164 in TS, it says: "Drugs are LC 5 unless they induce more than -10 points of disadvantages, in which case they are LC 4."

So there is actually a canonical answer for drug (ab)use and law enforcement without us having to speculate. Most hallucinogens, sopoforic or antisocial behaviour-inducing drugs would probably qualify for LC 4, then, which would mean that in an average, relatively open society (CR 3), recreative drug use is entirely legal (see p. 507 in GURPS Basic 4e).

In more restrictive societies (CR 4+; the Caliphate, the PRC, most nations in the TSA, etc.) drug use control would range from requiring registration of one's drug consumption to being condemned to forced labour or even executed/de-cerebrated.

Oh, and on the sly: thanks for all your replies. I guess from what everybody has written that I have decided that some people still smoke in my TS campaigns. I know the Royal Marine Commandos do, anyway:

"The last volume of Jane's Combat Bioroids says the Marathon is standard-issue for the UK's Royal Marines, with a few extra upgrades, like a filtration membrane. Now I know why Brigadier Lisa Rutherford-Hodges was so blasé about smoking six packs a day. 'Course, that's nothing - I hear Navy SEALS have gills these days." - Captain (ret.) Dana Martello, Marine Force Recon (GURPS Bio-Tech, p. 174)

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Old 09-21-2007, 01:25 PM   #40
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Default Re: Do people still smoke in the 22nd century?

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Really, you don't have to be in favour of drugs to think that the "War on Drugs" is a bad idea. As Bill said, the main point is more that it pretty clearly doesn't work. Project current trends forward 93 years with unchanged policies, and you get... Well, a pretty untenable situation. Ergo, changed policies, which might even lead to less drug use.
Occasionally, I find myself suggesting to the spectre of E. E. Smith that the antidrug policies of his Lensman novels make no sense: first, because they provide an invaluable source of funds to Boskone, where if they were legal, the profits (and taxes) would go to Civilization, as they do with booze and cigarettes; second, because the whole tendency of Civilization is to maximize individual liberty and shrink government into its proper sphere; and third, because the coldblooded Arisian outlook is that a measure of harmful conditions is good for the races that make up Civilization, by eliminating the weak and unfit, and we know that a really strong human like Virgil Samms can resist even the lure of thionite, so in the long run legalizing drugs would breed Addiction Resistance into the human race and the problem would be solved. I wonder if there's a word for this sort of imagined conversation?

On the other hand, I don't quite want to run a campaign where the zwilniks are the heroes. That would be too much like running a 20th century one where the Mafia or the CIA were heroes. No, wait . . .

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