What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

[Maximum7]

In my Star Wars RPG profile, my scientist creates a synthetic drug or “spice”. What could this drug do to make it the “ultimate recreational drug” and what could I call it.

[Icelander]

I suppose that depends on what kind of recreational effect you want.

Do you want a drug that enhances pleasant sensations and makes recreational activities more enjoyable or one where no activities are necessary, as the user experiences perfect euphoria independent of external stimuli?

Basically, do you want ultratech Ecstacy or ultratech heroin?

I suppose there is a third possibility, in hallucinogens / vision trance drugs, but in most respects, the difference is only in the inner experience of the user. From a practical point of view, the user is equally incapacitated whether he is experiencing intense whole-body euphoria, a freaky spirit quest or Nirvana.

[Maximum7]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I suppose that depends on what kind of recreational effect you want.

Do you want a drug that enhances pleasant sensations and makes recreational activities more enjoyable or one where no activities are necessary, as the user experiences perfect euphoria independent of external stimuli?

Basically, do you want ultratech Ecstacy or ultratech heroin?

I suppose there is a third possibility, in hallucinogens / vision trance drugs, but in most respects, the difference is only in the inner experience of the user. From a practical point of view, the user is equally incapacitated whether he is experiencing intense whole-body euphoria, a freaky spirit quest or Nirvana.

The second one.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Maximum7

The second one.

And what exactly are you looking for?

The game effects?

The actual physiological method it works by?

Subjective experience of the user?

With better pharmacological and neurochemical knowledge than we have, meddling with brain chemistry such as dopamine or seratonin levels is probably trivial. It may be possible to directly stimulate areas of the nervous system to induce feelings of wellness, security, trust, joy or sexual orgasm, each lasting for hours.

Aside from the social and legal stigmatization of recreational chemistry, I suspect modern medical technology is fully capable of perfecting drugs that keep people blissfully satisfied without much in the way of side effects. I mean, we can directly stimulate the pleasure center of the brain, at least in lab rats, so I figure we wouldn't need a long time to come up with some really effective and mostly side-effect free euphoria drugs if that were suddenly a legal avenue of research for huge drug companies. Sure, it would probably be psychologically addictive, but really, that's just because humans really value feeling pleasure.

If I were running a Star Wars game, I'd assume that any decent pharmacist could whip up synthetic heroin that was without any major side effects and did not lead to chemical dependency. I'd also assume that this wasn't particularly expensive or difficult, but something that exists in the background of the world, like how I assume they have super good reclycling technologies so the Death Star isn't just filling up with sewage.

But it's also not likely to be the focus of adventures, either, not unless there is something more exotic going on. To me, a Star Wars drug that is plot significant probably doesn't do anything scientific, like work in any way the way real drugs work, because Star Wars is a fantasy setting and the science-fiction trappings are just unimportant window dressing.

So, make it a magic drug, if it's supposed to be plot-significant in any way. Exact magical effects depend on what it's meant to do in your plot.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Maximum7

In my Star Wars RPG profile, my scientist creates a synthetic drug or “spice”. What could this drug do to make it the “ultimate recreational drug” and what could I call it.

E.E. 'Doc' Smith posited the ultimate addictive drug in his Lensman stories, a substance the characters call thionite. It stimulates the central nervous system in such a way that the subject experiences a full-sensory hallucination in which every desire that person has, conscious or subconscious, noble or base, anything, is experienced as if real...while the effect lasts.

Thionite was not (IIRC) physically addictive, but psychologically it was so seductive that the vast majority of people experiencing it are hopelessly psychologically addicted on the first dose.

[L.J.Steele]

As I recall, Niven's Gil the Arm stories deal with folks who directly stimulate the brain's pleasure centers. In other stories, the Puppeteers use remove versions -- tasps -- as weapons.

[Maximum7]

I like the idea for thioline.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Maximum7

I like the idea for thioline.

Thionite. If you mix your thionite with thiotimoline, you wind up with a party drug that gets people high before they take it. Really cuts into the profit margins for the dealers, so they tend to be pretty ruthless about suppressing that invention.

As long as you're dealing thionite, you might as well throw in bentlam and nitrolabe.

There's a lot of other sources to draw upon, if you like.

[malloyd]

Pick some random syllables? Basically no drugs are named for their effects anyway even in street names (you don't think crack or pot or moonshine are actually descriptive do you?), and commercial drugs are named from more or less randomly selected bits of chemical names (incidentally thionite is built on one of those models: thio- means sulfur, -ite is a common suffix for "earths" - not exactly a chemical category anymore but...)