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[Urist McMick]

Actually, until fairly recently it was believed that smoking was beneficial to your health.

[Auto Slaughter]

Andeerz, sorry about the "And read three or four times too" comment there, that was nastier on my part than I meant to be.

Yeah, even at the beginning of the 20th century it was seen as a ridiculous imposition for government to forbid citizens from consuming drugs.  The first restrictions in the U.S. were actually just extreme taxes instead of making the consumption of drugs outright illegal.  From reading the history it seems to me like it was Prohibition which initially gave the impetus to start restricting the use of other drugs.

It may have stemmed in part from the fact that pharmaceuticals were completely unregulated around 1900; an apothecary could sell just about anything it wanted to without any labeling or quality controls.  There's the figurative expression a "snake oil salesman" today but they actually did sell snake oil back then, even in mainstream drug stores.  You can look in old newspapers and magazines on Google News and Google Books and see advertisements for it and you can see it in pharmacy catalogs.  But journalistic investigations found that what was sold usually wasn't actual oil made from snakes, it was usually some kind of vegetable oil with cayenne pepper added to it to give it a "bite" and make it seem like what people would expect snake oil to be like.

Actually, until fairly recently it was believed that smoking was beneficial to your health.

No kidding, there were actually medicinal cigarettes sold back then - to treat asthma of all things.  I've even come across mention of an indication that the phrase "blow smoke up your ass" was derived from an actual medical practice, though I can't find the reference now.

They really liked shoving things up your ass back then; enemas made from some kind of booze were a regular prescription and before they invented rubber tubing to do gavage / tube feeding of patents who couldn't eat or swallow they would literally feed you by giving you a chicken soup enema.  I am so glad that I live in the 21st century.

[Urist McMick]

Also, in reference to the term "Snake oil salesman", Studies have now shown that real snake oil is in fact, incredibly good for you.

[Nagidal]

Great idea. I want a dwarf with a pipe crafting skill. Best pipes for smoking woud be of course wooden (is there Erica arborea somewhere in DF world?), but you should be able to make clay pipes, metal pipes, porcelain pipes, and glass pipes. Porcelain and glass would smoke horribly, but could be of great value.

[Leeko]

Porcelain and glass would smoke horribly, but could be of great value.

Ask your local stoner whether or not a glass pipe works well, I think you might be surprised.

But back on topic, a tobacco-esque plant and smoking habits/preferences would be pretty cool. We really don't need in-game psychoactives though.

[Urist McMick]

But if your gonna add in tabac you might as well add in drugs also. Then again it could probably be modded in fairly easily anyway.

[Spreggo]

But if your gonna add in tabac you might as well add in drugs also. Then again it could probably be modded in fairly easily anyway.

Because tobacco is a gateway drug? What?

I do see some interesting elements and depth added by some mild smokables, in the way of pipeweed in The Hobbit. I think this would be especially the case for adventure mode rather than dwarf mode, although conceivably you could grow a sort of pipeweed and cure it for export in fortress mode. It is always good to have another product to base your economy on.

I love the scene in the fellowship when Gandalf realizes he feels a little wonky from not having a pipe in a while, and so sits deep in Moria in contemplation puffing on his pipe.

Morrowind also handled addiction well with skooma and moon sugar. But, I don't really see the point of locking up dwarves in fortress mode for smoking something that you probably ordered them to produce. That is kind of... idiotic.

[Sheb]

Not more idiotic than killing them for failing to produce a thing thay can't produce.

[Urist McMick]

I'm just talkin weed man, All you really need to is have it slow production, (Much as a lack of alcohol does now), and i think in one of the talks Toady was talking about adding 'shrooms and some form of hallucination affect for Adv mode.

[Spreggo]

The point of the noble mechanic is to add challenges to the production side of the game that aren't spawned from the wishes of the player. Either that or you concoct an interesting way to kill off the nobles. The same way moods make you go out of your way to provide certain materials, or you lose the dwarf.

If the player can't do anything about the dwarves going to jail, then what is the point? What challenge does it add? It is just an annoyance.

[Owlbread]

The point of the noble mechanic is to add challenges to the production side of the game that aren't spawned from the wishes of the player. Either that or you concoct andinteresting way to kill off the nobles. The same way moods make you go out of your way to provide certain materials, or you lose the dwarf.

If the player can't do anything about the dwarves going to jail, then what is the point? What challenge does it add? It is just an annoyance.

I sort the problem by just completely ignoring the fortress guard. I have never had any form of justice in my fortress, and I never will until it gets sorted.

[Sheb]

Actually, we should just have ethics tags for drugs. [DRUGS_FOR_FUN:UNTHINKABLE] and [DRUGS_FOR_MEDICAL_USE:ACCEPTABLE] would do for Dwarves. Maybe have separate tags for "hard" and "soft" drugs.

Some drugs would have painkilling effect and be used by the Chief Medical Dwarf to relieve pain. Later on we could have an addicted Dwarf use his Liar skill to try to convince the Chief Medical Dwarf to give him a fix. If he fail, the Chief Medical Dwarf could denounce him to the authorities (Depending on his stance toward authority and his attitude toward drugs). That way, we finally get to diversify the use of those social skills, and the player get some (but not too much) control over drug policy. Picking up a conservative Chief Medical Dwarf (High respect for authority+Dislike for drugs) could lead to a virtual banning of drugs with cells full of drug offender, while more liberal Chief Medical Dwarf would lead to a pot-ridden fortress with lower productivity due to general stonage.

[Auto Slaughter]

Oh man, how about getting addicted to opium after taking it for medical use!  I can totally see one-legged, one-eyed veterans cruising around the fortress on crutches, beating up their drug dealers.

[Urist McIsaac]

I don't think certain smoke-able plants should have "drug like effects" on dwarfs. I mean dwarfs just get wasted all day and its not like they stumble around the fort and vomit everywhere. Dwarfs are stout creatures so if plants had any drug like effects it shouldn't be a major part of the game play. Smoking plants shouldn't make your dwarfs better or worse at things, it would just make them happy and more productive, like booze. Its fine if plants get dwarfs high, but I wouldn't want it to change the game play. Let Urist McSmoker go to his finely engraved smoking room, take a long drag from his jewel encrusted dragon bone pipe, then right back to stonecrafting with him!

[Medicine Man]

Maybe there could be a morphine like drug? You know, one that is extremely addictive but can cure most pain.