Stealing DE -- Drug edition

[yakalskovich]

 Following up Wednesday's DE, and owing to some unfortunate developments in certain canons: how do your charries feel about recreational drugs that are not alcohol? Do they have any experience with them, and what happened if the did? What is their society's stance towards them? Do they happen in canon at all?

... Still so totally thinking of that tumblr post here.

Comments

[yinyangwizard]

AFAIK, Japanese culture really frowns on recreational drug use, other than alcohol and tobacco. The mage tradition Seimei belongs to,¹ which is big on Buddhist asceticism, isn't terribly keen on it either.

That said, there are mages in Seimei's world who use "natural" drugs like marijuana and peyote in their magic.² For some this kind of drug use is (occasionally) recreational, and for others there is nothing recreational about it, because it's sacred and/or reserved for really serious magic.

While Seimei is a little uncomfortable with the idea of using drugs that way and would never partake himself, he is much more accepting of such practices than other mages of his tradition. It is - for people with a certain cultural and magical background - a perfectly valid way to do magic. He's also okay with the idea of using natural drugs to treat medical conditions.

Other than that, though, he considers it to be a Bad Idea, and even if he won't get judgmental about it he has been known to stage interventions from time to time.

¹Actually, the Akashic Brotherhood, one of the Great Traditions in White Wolf's Mage games.

²Canonically, either explicit or strongly implied for the Cult of Ecstasy and Dreamspeaker traditions.

[bjornwilde]

Rollo and his magic mushrooms are all for it. It's interesting that we haven't seen him partake of anything since first part of season 03 though. I'll have to think on what changed for that.

Eliot is for it as well and practices on occasion. He tends to prefer alcohol as he has more control over it. This changes drastically later in canon and it is ugly.

All my other pups don't touch the stuff.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

All of my pups are fairly dull in this regard.

Yamato would never take recreational drugs, and once he's old enough to drink probably won't even drink that much. A big part of that is that he doesn't like being out of control. A slightly smaller part of that is that he feels like he can't be: He could have to deal with a crisis at any time, and him being high or drunk is liable to lead to either a) Not being able to help out at all, or b) Garurumon stumbling around being all 'guys I think I just totaled, like, six cars send help.'

Hawke wouldn't either, and again, it's about control as much as anything else. He gets drunk, but unless there was some super important spell that required him to get high, that's as far as he'll go.

Aaand Sherral also wouldn't, again for reasons of control - although the Archadian military also probably has a zero tolerance policy for recreational drugs that aren't alcohol, and he's not going to run the risk of getting severely punished just for a high.

[i_am_your_host]

*Emcee raises his hand* Yes.

Narcotics were prevalent in 1920s-1930s Berlin subcultures. They were actually legal with prescription, as most were regarded as painkillers (WWI veterans needed them), but of course they were available on the black market and through drug dealers. Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, tranquilizers, morphine, opium, all sorts of uppers and downers -- Emcee has done them all! I depict him going in and out of phases depending on his emotional state and the situations he finds himself in. I think his lackadaisical attitude towards addiction stems from the fact that in his time, addiction was thought of as being easily curable. Until people die from it. But still.

In the film, I think drug use is only alluded to (can't remember for sure); in the play, Sally Bowles is seen snorting cocaine, and through the second half, Emcee gradually and visibly deteriorates until he shows up almost incoherent with bleeding track marks on his arm.

[yinyangwizard]

Fun fact: heroin was developed in the early 20th century as a less addictive alternative to morphine! Look how well that turned out!

[i_am_your_host]

Haha, exactly! Bayer was a German pharmaceutical company, and they developed and sold heroin as a cough suppressant. Thanks, Germany!

[yakalskovich]

Bayer actually still is that -- but they do not, to my knowledge, make or sell heroin any more.

They run a first league football team, Bayer Leverkusen, too.