There's a bunch of tech out there that can neutralize toxins, poisons and drugs -- chief among them the Low cost medichines (blessed medichines!). I was wondering -- would these be able to cure/prevent physical addiction to a drug (without neutralizing the drug in the first place)? From the medichines description this seems to be the case, but it's not 100% clear.
I fully understand that if one got bonus points at character creation from taking an addiction, this is not an easy way out -- the player of a character who has an easily removed negative trait has to justify why the character still retains the trait, and pay back any CP if the character does eventually remove the trait. I also fully understand that mental addiction is something else entirely.
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Physical drug addiction & healing tech (medichines, vats etc.)
Fri, 2012-07-27 11:09
#1
babayaga
Physical drug addiction & healing tech (medichines, vats etc.)
Fri, 2012-07-27 12:45
#2
DivineWrath
I'm assuming you are talking
I'm assuming you are talking about the kind of drugs that boosts your performance, not the kind you take just to get high?
No. I don't think that is how things work. Drugs work by changing your biochemistry. This both provides the boost, but it also provides the risk for addiction. In order to reduce the risk for addiction, you would need to reduce the overall impact of the drug. This may reduce the effects of the boost, or negate it entirely.
You have read the description for medichines wrong then. They can do 3 things in regards to drugs: it can negate them before they have a chance to begin, they can allow you override them so you can get drugged or poisoned, or they can quickly clean your system of drugs and poisons. The third option reduces the remaining duration in half.
Fri, 2012-07-27 14:45
#3
babayaga
DivineWrath wrote:I'm
Either. But I'm talking about ones providing *physical* addiction -- it's your body that gets messed up, you do not develop a psychological dependence.
Right. So the three steps would be:
1. Get your dose and enjoy it.
2. Possibly get your body addicted.
3. Once the drug has run its effects (minutes to hours later) call upon your medichines to reset your biochemistry to what it was before you took the drug.
Fri, 2012-07-27 17:57
#4
DivineWrath
You seem to be over
You seem to be over-estimating the healing power of medichines. Medichines can't heal all damage. Medichines tend to put morphs into medically induced stasis if the damage is too extreme for them to heal. Even though a healing vat can grow a new body from a head put in medical stasis (using medichines), healing vats can't revive dead bodies. It takes healing vats years to grow a new morph from scratch.
Also, I don't think that the drug addiction section was as well defined as it could have been. I consider such gaps information to be growing pains, something that is difficult for a new game lines to avoid. At this time, I would rule that medichines can do nothing to prevent addictions if you give them the override needed to allow drugs to take effect. If I gather new information, I may change my mind.
I'll be doing some searching on the internet as I remember hearing about some stuff.
Sat, 2012-07-28 09:04
#5
babayaga
DivineWrath wrote:You seem to
Right. But remember, it just takes a WILL roll and a week of staying "clean" for your body to eliminate a minor addiction. This is nothing like regrowing an organ or a whole body. It should be well within the capability of medichines.
Another way of looking at it, is that drugs, in addition to short term effects, are long-term poisons. Medichines remove poisons and toxins from the body, so they should eliminate the long term damage inflicted by drugs.
Agreed!
Actually, I agree with this. They can do nothing to *prevent* the addiction if you allow the drug to take effect -- the addiction is "part of the package" so to speak. The issue is whether they can *cure* the addiction, bringing back your body to a pre-drug state.
Sat, 2012-07-28 15:46
#6
Madwand
Yes, I would allow medichines
Yes, I would allow medichines and healing vats to cure physical addictions. I don't see any reason why not... such an addiction is a type of damage, after all.
My main concern is with Synthmorphs, now. All drugs are mentally addictive for them. This was a recent errata to prevent the "abuse" of synths being able to take physically addictive drugs without suffering from it. Yet now the abuse goes the other way: it's now biomorphs that are better at abusing physically addictive drugs. At least before, BOTH kinds of morphs could do a similar trick.
They really need much better drug rules.
Sat, 2012-07-28 18:46
#7
Arenamontanus
Physical addictions mainly
Physical addictions mainly consist of the body adjusting itself to the drug. For example, inhibitory neurons in serious alcoholics become less active since they are normally boosted by the ever-present downer alcohol. Same thing in opiate addicts, where the opioid system (also pretty inhibitory) starts to underfunction. If you remove the drug the brain becomes overly excitable, producing aversive reactions or even delirium tremens/cold turkey. In nicotine addiction you instead get extra acetylcholine receptors you need to fill.
Now, this sounds like changed medichines are not good at fixing. They are unlikely to be suitable to tune your neural networks: that is what psychosurgery is best for. A healing vat with the right programming can likely fix receptor levels, but it is a fairly delicate operation. Everybody has their own baseline.
So I would say that physical addictions can be cured, but you need an expert to do it. Anybody selling you an overnight cure is likely ripping you off or planning to steal your morph.
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Sat, 2012-07-28 19:05
#8
Madwand
The things you are talking
The things you are talking about with changes in the brain would indeed require pscyosurgery; that's because they are the symptoms of a mental addiction, not a physical one.
It shouldn't take an "expert" to cure a physical addiction. If this is an era when a sex change is something that can just be taken care of by stepping into a healing vat, I would rate a physical addiction no more complex an operation. Even less so; which is why I would allow medichines to take care of it.
Sat, 2012-07-28 19:26
#9
Arenamontanus
Madwand wrote:The things you
Nonono, I am talking physical addiction here. Mental addiction is what happens when reward signals rewire your basal ganglia-frontal lobe loops to desire the drug. This is the habituation to the drug, what is actually called physical addiction in medicine.
Why would you rate it as easy? I based my argument on my understanding of the neuroscience of addiction.
If you allow easy fixes at this level, then medichines should also allow you to change personality and emotions near-instantly. Same kind of change.
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Sat, 2012-07-28 23:42
#10
DivineWrath
I found a useful link after a
I found a useful link after a little bit of searching.
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/addiction_&_buprenorphine.html
We do have medicines today that can be used to fight addictions. They're called anti-addiction drugs. They work by reducing the cravings and pain caused by addictions. It should be noted that they too are addictive, just less damaging than the drugs they combat. They also are not immediately effective. A patient may need to take the drugs for weeks, possible months to get maximum benefits.
I looked, and the rules do weakly mention anti-addiction drugs, but they never expand on it.
To add to this, medichines (the nanoware) is not omnipotent, and therefore not well suited for every application. Only Titan nanoswarms seem to the have the ability to adapt quickly and drastically.
There are tasks that are done better by other more specialized nanoware. For instance, Nanophages can automatically protect a person against nanodrugs and nanotoxins. Medichines can not provide automatic protection against nanodrugs and nanotoxins, and the rules aren't clear if they can fight them at all. An example of a drastic change to a body is skinflex. Skinflex allows a person to change the appearance of their face, and change their skin color and hair color.
Sun, 2012-07-29 02:15
#11
DivineWrath
Much of the problems in this
Much of the problems in this thread seems to relate to the lack of technological solutions to drug addiction. Perhaps it would be prudent of me to post something that I might allow in my game.
*Warning* *Rough Drafts*
Anti-Addiction Pill: This pill contains a specialized nanoswarm that, once swallowed, will swarm throughout the person's body. It takes roughly 20 minutes to get ready. It'll act to manage the pain and cravings caused by the addiction, while trying to repair any damage the person suffered due to the addiction.
The nanoswarm in this pill lasts 2 weeks. During that time, the nanoswarm will take measures to enable to the person to function without the need to get a fix of whatever drug they are addicted to. This effectively multiplies the time the character can go without needing to make WIL tests to avoid relapsing by 5. Mild addiction changes from 1 week to once every 5 weeks. Moderate addiction changes from 1 day to once every 5 days. Major addiction changes from once every 6 hours to once every 30 hours (1.25 days). As such, using this nanoswarm to cure a mild drug addiction is practically guaranteed (assuming the user doesn't voluntarily relapse), while a moderate addiction is at risk of relapsing once, but the real danger lies in those who have a Major addiction as not only will they be at risk of relapsing frequently, but a single Anti-Addiction pill will not last long enough to cure them.
As an added bonus, this nanoswarm can provide a +20 bonus on WIL tests to avoid relapsing, or to increase their addiction level. It can also negate some of the penalties of addiction, reducing penalties to all actions by 10, reduce durability penalties by 5 (for physical addictions), and reduce the penalty to Willpower stress tests by 10.
Cost [Low]
Anti-Addiction Nanoware: This functions as a more potent version of the Anti-Addiction Pill. The duration the patient can go without feeling the need for a fix is 10 times longer instead of the Pill's 5 times longer. The patient gets a +30 bonus to avoid increasing their addiction level, and avoid relapsing (as apposed to the Pill's +20). It also reducing penalties to all actions by 20 (vs 10), reduces durability penalties by 10 (vs 5), and reduces the penalty to Willpower stress tests by 20 (vs 10).
Being nanoware, this augmentation does not wear out after 2 weeks, but instead it can provides its full protection indefinitely.
Cost [Moderate]
Curing Addiction with Healing Vats
It takes roughly 10 days to completely cure a Major addiction problem with healing vats. 4 days to drop from Major to Moderate, 3 days to drop from Moderate to Minor, and 3 days to drop from Minor to no addiction.
This time takes into consideration that the patient, being addicted, might not want to remain in the healing vat as it denies the subject access to their cravings. Instead, the healing vat uses its medichines render the subject unconscous the entire duration. This enables the medichines to work on fixing the problem as opposed to treating the symptoms of a person who might relapse.
Of course, spending over a week in healing vat is a bit extreme for most profit focused executives. They often prefer that the patient remains in the vat no longer than 4 days (long enough to drop Major addiction to Moderate), and then give them the pill which should take care of the rest.
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Let me know if this works for you.
Sun, 2012-07-29 05:25
#12
Arenamontanus
But how does the pill figure
But how does the pill figure out whether to reduce cholinergic receptors, upregulate chloride channels or make encephalin synapses more active? It all depends on which drug(s) were used *and* the individual.
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Sun, 2012-07-29 15:48
#13
DivineWrath
How does it figure this stuff
How does it figure this stuff out you ask? I hadn't given it much thought. I kinda assumed that with sufficiently advanced technology, it would be magic. While
Possible means of diagnosis.
-The pills come in different varieties. One pill would be effective against one type of drug and related drugs, but would not be very effective against those drugs it wasn't designed for. It would do a brief (or not so brief) diagnosis to determine if the patient took the right pill for the job. This would allow a nanoswarm to carry the best tools to deal with a specific addiction. (I had considered making this how things worked initially, but I decided it would be troublesome to have a large variety of pills. I figured that 1 size fits all policy would work best.).
-Ask the mesh inserts/muse. The nanoswarm asks the muse and mesh inserts what the patient has been taking, and in what quantities. If the patient has additional medical hardware, like medichines, it would ask those too. This would save a lot of diagnosis trouble as the nanoswarm would know what the person was taking. Of course, this method might run into problems of them lying (because the patient told them to do so), or they simply don't know.
-Scan the body for trace chemicals. Many people get known drug addicts to perform piss tests to determine what they are on, and if they took them recently. This is also done on athletes.
-Have the patient take small samples of the drug. The user takes a small sample of the drug, and the nanoswarm analysis it and determines the effects on the mind and body. A bit risky, but it may be the best solution for an unknown drug.
-Read the patient's experiences. If the patient records its drug experiences, or has an easy way to generate them (such as with Mnemonic Enhancement cyberware), then the nanoswarm could analyze the experience. Of course, a nanoswarm probably doesn't have the means to read or make sense of an XP file, but it might be possible for the nanoware version and the healing vat.
-Do tests on the patient. The nanoswarm could try to scan the person's brain and analyze its activity, and place sensors in various parts of the body. It then could release small quantities of drugs of different types and try to determine which ones the patient responds to. It should be able to figure out what systems seem to be out of whack.
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This is what I can think of right now. I might have more ideas later.
Sun, 2012-07-29 18:30
#14
Arenamontanus
DivineWrath wrote:How does it
Yes, but not everything in EP is at the level of magic. It is like the real world: yes, we can put a man on the moon and defeat stomach ulcers, but we cannot cure the common cold.
However, I do like your descriptions. I assume you realized as you wrote them just how many devils were lurking in the details: erroneous, incompatible or missing sensor data, complex interactions between different drugs and the individual brains and biochemistries of different people, unclear statistical data on what particular drugs do when combined, and so on. Systems like these have enough internal complexity to fail in intriguing ways. They can also be improved with extensive (and costly) research. So I would agree that automated drug dependency treatments exist - it is just that they are imperfect.
Adventure idea: A PC or a friend of them decides to kick a bad habit and ingests a new, heavily advertised addiction cure. Nanomachines rewire the relevant biochemical pathways and neurons... and then all hell breaks loose. Some options:
1. Scanners: The machines contain the code for the Watts-MacLeod virus. Suddenly a whole rash of asyncs are emerging - and the authorities, thinking they are getting an exsurgent outbreak, are trying to hunt them all down. Was it all an accident, or is somebody at the manufacturer secretly seeding the population?
2. Total Recall: the cure works perfectly fine, but also unblocks memories that the character had previously no access to. It seems they had a past life they - or somebody else - wanted to hide. What kind of activities make somebody want to delete a whole chapter of their life and cover it with a drug addiction?
3. NanoNibbana: The cure also cures another "addiction" - a religion, a social relationship or a motivation. How will the character react? Sue the manufacturer, change their life, or start experimenting with curing all addictions and attachments - a nanomachine mediated shortcut to Buddhist enlightenment?
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Sun, 2012-07-29 22:34
#15
DivineWrath
Arenamontanus wrote
I had considered rephrasing that sentence. I was wondering if it was going to come back to haunt me. It wasn't entirely accurate, but I couldn't think of a better way of phrasing things at the time. I had considered possible problems, but I didn't think much about the technical details or solutions. My emphasis was on that future technology would probably be better in ways we couldn't predict, and would have fixed problems we are unlikely to consider.
I was also trying to avoid the issue of me not having a good understanding of addictions. You seem to know a bit about it though. Do you happen to have a few good links I could read so that I may catch up on this topic?
I have a talent for breaking things. It can be helpful when trying to fix things as it allows me to quickly make a mental list of how something might have broke. Some of those ideas I posted I had considered when I was first designing those items. However, I had assumed that EP tech would have solved those problems though.
Comments
1. Maybe someone wants to break into some place that is well protected by habitat security. A "sudden TITAN virus outbreak" might distract the habitat security enough to break in, or better yet the security will feel it would be a good idea to move things before its too late to do so.
3. I overlooked religion as being an addiction. I was focused on addiction to physical drugs. I supposed if I had overlooked it, it makes it that much more plausible that some fictional character may have made a design error that makes the nanoswarm not distinguish between physical addictions, and things that people might label to be important personal beliefs.
Some plot hooks of my own.
4. Spy nanoswarm. An important figure, possibly a hypercorp elite, is rumored to have a drug addiction. Certain people want to exploit this, and do so by creating a cure that is currently in the "test phase". They try to cast a wide net by making the drug available and don't ask any questions about anyone who wants some. It is their hopes that either the hypercorp elite or someone who provides his fix will end up giving him one the pills. What will the nanoswarm does once it finds the right person is anyone's guess.
5. An anti-anti-addiction nanoswarm? It turns out that a new anti-addiction nanoswarm has been really effective. So much so that a few drug cartels are not happy about it. However, someone has managed to make a nanodrug that can counter it. Not only will it fight off the medicine, but it will try to make so that the medicine will never work. It will try to rewire the person's ego so that they can derive no satisfaction from anything but what the cartel sells.
6. The drug cartel decides to change how they do business. They insist (forcefully if need be) that people install their new drug nanoware. It can provide any drug experience at any time... so long they approve. With a simple signal, they offer a reward for service or loyalty, or they can cause someone to crash really hard. How does the rest of world react to this new drug economy?
Mon, 2012-07-30 00:59
#16
Lord High Munchkin
What Addiction?
One of the problems is that many, many addicts simply deny that they are addicts at all... the "I could give up any time I choose" syndrome.
Getting an addict to "wise up" adds a whole level more to the suggested hooks.
Mon, 2012-07-30 06:51
#17
Arenamontanus
DivineWrath wrote:My emphasis
That is very true. But if you look at the world you will see that technology often fixes completely different problems than the ones we think need to be fixed. A Victorian person would be surprised that we haven't stopped war and poverty with our advanced technology (and we have had a war on cancer for 40 years now), outraged (and titillated) by Internet pornography and gender reassignment surgery, impressed by us wiping out smallpox and manipulating individual atoms, and somewhat confused by what problem smartphones are supposed to solve. Future technology is going to be just as weird.
The Society for Neuroscience has a short brief.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction is pretty decent, especially if you check out the side link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal.
Yes, that is a very good generic reason for nearly any event. It is all just a distraction.
Sounds like a very tricky plan, but still not entirely implausible. "Look, we get our man, and in the meantime we will cure a couple of people? What could go wrong?"
Of course, once you start getting people with your nanites it might be very tempting to use them to get some extra spying done. Especially if you are interested in the drug culture.
I love this one. "Fly higher with our air mile program!"
And of course, that system might have security flaws. Or it might include a P2P network allowing the cartel not just to send updates and do monitoring, but to use their "customers" as a botnet. Or an escape hatch - "Sir, it looks like Don Falconi#s ego escaped... into the addict population."
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