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[SirHoneyBadger]

Tolkien's hobbits and their "pipeweed" were a big cultural inspiration driving the hippies to smoke pot. So whether it was tobacco the hobbits were growing or not (and it's pretty baldly implied in even Peter Jackson's version that Gandalf was smoking a very "special blend" that was apparently clouding his thoughts...not something tobacco is particularly known for.), it still did a lot to further marijuana use.

For that matter, the Ring itself was some pretty hardcore shit. Gollum's a pretty great allegory for a strung out junkie jonesing for a fix.

[Mel_Vixen]

Europe has a number of drugs apart from toadstools that are know for a longer time. Hyoscyamus, Mandragora officinarum, Datura stramonium, Atropa, Scopoliato name some - scientifical since i am to lazy to seek the names in english. I should also note that most of these plants are poisonous so dont try any idiotic experiments.

[Salmeuk]

I personally find drug abuse in games distasteful and would not care to expand it past jolly ale-swigging, pipe-smoking fat bearded men dancing on tables. I do not want to see all my dwarves walking around chewing their beard rambling about how AMAZING IT TASTES CHECK IT OUT GUYS (don't call that a stereotype, it is a quote). However, I also find executing my own nobles distasteful and you probably find my fascination in dwarven sewer simulation and design distasteful. So here's a thought. Init file token [REC_DRUGS:1] lets you go take your fellow bearded midgets and go get lit, while my [liBERALISM:0:10:20] dwarves build a wall around my fort, thus ensuring you won't show up come winter as a bunch of threadbare, strung-out beggars clamoring for copper coins and hauling jobs while bashing Ayn Rand over five dollar imported coffee milkshakes. If anything calls for an on-off switch its this.

I think you switched topics mid-paragraph.

This topic keeps getting necroed, but I don't mind.

 Nothing new has been said; no need to update op.

[Dvergar]

My necro post DID add something (though its actual worth is up to the masses)

Add to the General Section, "criminal catalyst".  Right now "justice" consists of little temper tantrums your dwarves throw, but were a dwarf addicted on a drug and couldn't get it, he would try stealing money, stealing drugs, experimenting with new drugs, and making money "illegally" (selling/growing drugs) in addition to throwing things, picking random fist-fights, and going beserk.

Recreational drugs have impacts beyond just the effects the user immediately feels.  I think you should update the OP mentioning drugs being a catalyst for criminal activity.

[Nikov]

Nothing new has been said; no need to update op.

Pardon me, Good Sirrah, but I do not believe an init line off switch is featured on the front post, or dwarven personality traits affecting their interest in recreational drug use. Also I mentioned I would like it to all fall under the broad scope of alchemy, not be a grand feature of itself. Perhaps my humorous tone was unclear.

Also, Dvergar, I never heard of refined sugar being called a drug. I see where you might be coming from, but that's for another discussion I suppose.

[DFPongo]

I'm with Nikov,
If this kind of thing was added outside an alchemy framework. Please make it optional.

[zwei]

My necro post DID add something (though its actual worth is up to the masses)

Add to the General Section, "criminal catalyst".  Right now "justice" consists of little temper tantrums your dwarves throw, but were a dwarf addicted on a drug and couldn't get it, he would try stealing money, stealing drugs, experimenting with new drugs, and making money "illegally" (selling/growing drugs) in addition to throwing things, picking random fist-fights, and going beserk.

Recreational drugs have impacts beyond just the effects the user immediately feels.  I think you should update the OP mentioning drugs being a catalyst for criminal activity.

They only trigger criminal activity because they are illegal.

Illegal drugs -> Expensive drugs
Expensive drugs -> Crime

If you could buy had drung in supermarket just like you buy alcohol or nicotine hit, they would not be worse broblem than alcoholism.

If you want use fallout, withdrawal symptoms or just health problems (yellow/brown liver for example.) are best.

[Nikov]

They only trigger criminal activity because they are illegal.

Driving while on acid is illegal. Drunk driving is illegal.

If you could buy had drung in supermarket just like you buy alcohol or nicotine hit, they would not be worse broblem than alcoholism.

Drunk driving is still illegal, even if you can buy alcohol in a supermarket. Having LSD at your local pharmacy is not going to make LSD users safe to drive. It will still be illegal to drive while on acid because it is dangerous to society. Thus, legalized drugs will still trigger criminal activity.

But this is neither here nor there. I simply had to refute this nonsense.

We definately need an init line opt-out for recreational drug activity among dwarves, and I'd much rather see said drugs be a 'pro/con' affair to be weighed as a calculated matter. Legalize and produce drugs, and your dwarves are happier but take breaks more often and may have health problems or walk off of cliffs or stick their hands in the smelter (Honestly, a military/industrial facility that amounts to an enormous metalworking plant buried underground with yawning chasms and frequent invasions of goblins is NOT an ideal place to get drunk; say nothing of imagine you can fly, taste cinnabar or solve conflicts with a hug). Still Toady has mentioned pipes and smokables. I've nothing against tobacco and people will likely want some imported elven 'herbal remedies'. Past that I think a robust alchemey reaction system is the way to go, since it avoids being completely barefaced about it. Dwarves smoking some alchemically-enhanced tobacco for super happy thoughts beats them smoking *rotten cave wheat seed*. It would be nice to know what Toady thought of dwarves and drugs in the first place. Any reflective goals?

And I'd rather see actual designated 'bar' areas and associated furniture and bartending with mugs and jolly little dances before Toady goes into (what I consider) undwarven activities like hooka bars.

[Dvergar]

Also, Dvergar, I never heard of refined sugar being called a drug. I see where you might be coming from, but that's for another discussion I suppose.

By the strictest defintion, refined sugar is a drug because it alters normal body function, throws your internal equilibrium out of wack for a moment.

But was talking about "substance abuse".  Sugar was abused, and still is abused by the world.  Sugar is addictive, causes major dental problems, and it part of the reason for much larger health problems.  [/off topic]

Are social issues out of place in Dwarf Fortress?  Do we really need to opt out of things such as crime?  I understand opting out of recreational drugs because you think it is too nitty-gritty and lifelike, but we really be able to just opt out of inter-fortress crimes such as theft, murder, smuggling, and exploitation?  Granted, the dwarves are far away from being individual thinking beings, but are we going to force them to be 100% morally straight?

[Nikov]

[offtopic]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I should think there are no health problems linked to cane or beet sugar that could not be caused by a diet overly rich in honey or even fruit. As for tooth decay eating lemons will cause that, and most Southerners will tell you Stonewall Jackson was addicted to them. I would not consider sugar a drug. I am aware that it alters blood sugar levels and so forth, and that the body is not naturally inclined to it from birth. However I just... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drugs:_Suc-Sul. And nevermind. I shall speak no more of this.

[/offtopic]

Oh no, not at all. I think criminal behavior is an excellent thing to have in the fantasy world. By all means. Dwarves, being jealous and coveting sorts, could readily be driven to murder and theft against those they view as undeserving. I can easily see starving dwarves stealing money to pay for food, or a dwarven love triangle being 'straightened out' by an axe in the back, and so forth. But other crimes, such as rape, seem inappropriate for the dwarven society, if not the rest of the game. And while I am not saying theft and murder are acceptable but drug use and rape are just abhorrant, I will say that dwarves simply strike me as more likely to kill someone they hate than go home and smoke it off (drinking it off is more their style). Perhaps this could get into the ETHICS raw tags, if they still exist, and become a civilization by civilization affair. But drugs would still seem to be the sort of thing the init file needs a line for, because while dwarves current commit murder in the form of berserking and tantrums, I do not recall any sort of drug (ab)use to be expanded upon in a similar fashion. Additionally it pushes into a region one might not want their 12-year-old son entering.

And Pipe-Weed, from the Wiki;

The Shire being based on an idealized version of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century rural England of Tolkien's childhood, it is consistent that the hobbits should be familiar with tobacco. However, Tolkien was conscious of avoiding direct use of the loanword "tobacco" (from Arawakan) in The Lord of the Rings as inconsistent with the generally "Old World"-inspired" setting of Middle-earth.[33] He does unambiguously call the plant "tobacco" in The Hobbit and The Peoples of Middle-earth. And there is at least one reference to tobacco in The Lord of the Rings. In the chapter Flotsam and Jetsam, Tolkien writes "He produced a small leather bag full of tobacco".

Just so all is clear. The counterculture members were incorrect, and you are correct in your observation of what they misinterpreted.

[Dvergar]

But without alcohol to cloud and contaminate dwarven minds creating interesting situations, mind-altering drugs should step up to the plate.

I don't think the argument "It's not dwarfy enough" is good enough to prevent something like drugs from going in, or from keeping anything from going in.  They all wear leather thongs and skirts and will be using elven weapons by the next release.  Dwarfyness != Manlyness

[Felblood]

I really wanted to stay out of this, because there's just so many kinds of bias floating around in this thread, clouding the discussion, but I can't resist giving my 2☼.

I think unified mechanics are the way to go with this.

The blood contaminant system that poisons use could be extended to include things like medicines and other drugs. Where the material came from(venom, alchemy, plants, space rocks) and how it got into your bloodstream(smoked/inhaled, eaten, chewed, injected, skin contact) are immaterial, so long as it does something to your dwarf once it's inside him.

The door for this is already open, it's just a matter of Toady coding in more  types of effects for blood contaminants, and them linking them to the material raws so that people who want stoner dwarves(pun not intended, but left intact) can put them in.

Mixing dwarven drugs with dwarven medicine would be a great thing for a number of reasons, particularly if the player has to approve any dangerous or untested drugs, before they are administered in his hospital. From injecting Urist CrippledVeteran with random plant extracts, just to see what happens, to arguing with yourself about whether to administer a beneficial, but frighteningly addictive and psychotropic medication, to your champion there's hours of fun and Fun, to be had.

Considering the period knowledge of the long-term, psychological effects of mind altering drugs, it would be cool if not all dwarves were effected the same way. Even the best modern anti-depressents have the opposite effect on a significant portion of the populous. Don't be surprised if the calming drugs you gave to Urist McCrazyPants makes him start chopping people.

Another cool thing would be a drug that can abort a funny mood. The side effects of this would have to be extreme, so only the cruelest or most desperate player would order it done.

Some sort of ETHICS regarding the use of mood altering drugs would be awesome. Goblins and Kobolds would have PERSONAL_CHOICE or ACCEPTABLE , while the other races could run the gamut from PUNISH_SEVERE to JUSTIFIED_IF_NO_REPERCUSSIONS.

In the spirit of keeping DF open and fun for everyone, I think purely recreational drugs (happy thoughts with no significant repercussions) should be kept out of the vanilla raws. This will still leave us with dwarf patients who got hooked on prescription painkillers , and start stealing hospital supplies, which should be enough to satisfy most customers.

[Safe-Keeper]

I agree, I just don't see dwarves smoking pot or injecting heroine into their veins. Sure, it should be something encountered in other races, but dwarves? Gives me a hilarious image in my head of Gimli selling street magazines.

In other races, though? Some humans doing drugs, well, that's a given. Other than that, I don't think fantasy covers narcotics too well.

[SethCreiyd]

I agree, I just don't see dwarves smoking pot or injecting heroine into their veins. Sure, it should be something encountered in other races, but dwarves? Gives me a hilarious image in my head of Gimli selling street magazines.

In other races, though? Some humans doing drugs, well, that's a given. Other than that, I don't think fantasy covers narcotics too well.

Drawing on Tolkien as a source once more, his dwarves were among the races that grew and used pipe-weed, so being able to craft pipes and smoke plants is sufficiently dwarfy.  Although pipe-weed was not representative of cannabis, there's no reason to assume that other plants would never be smoked for their somatic effects, unless the effects were unpleasant or poisonous to a given species.

Drugs might affect different races differently; a sprig of hemlock, while fatal to humans, might make a relaxing smoke for a goblin.  A draught of absinthe might be instantly fatal to elves, who are sensitive to thujone.

The image of dwarves injecting themselves is ridiculous, and processed drugs would probably be pushing it, but pipe smoking would be a natural fit, lore-friendly for the grandfather of high fantasy novels.  It makes sense that Dwarven priests and their [RELIGION_SPHERE:FIRE] would be drawn to burning plants within their mountain halls, where the smoke would build up and lo, Armok would show them the plant's inner magic...

[Owlbread]

Gives me a hilarious image in my head of Gimli selling street magazines.

I think you'll find that's truer than you think if you walk outside Glasgow central trainstation.