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Little is known about Amazo Pills other than the name. Certain inferences can be be made based on it, however.
| Amazo Pills are named after an android created by one Professor Ivo, which was able to duplicate all the superhuman abilities of the Justice League of America.
it is likely, therefore, that the pills duplicate this effect to some extent, and presumably allow the user to duplicate the powers of nearby superhumans. Amazo himself was able to duplicate even powers granted by artifacts such as Green Lantern’s ring or Wonder Woman’s lasso – it is unlikely that the drug is anywhere near this powerful. |
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Related drugs: Darkshots, Hyperdrene, Mongoose Blood and Xenite
One of the most societally destablising drugs ever developed, Ascomycin is an anti-agathic, which is to say, it is a drug that prevents or retards aging.
| Ascomycin is a drug that confers non-specific immunity. It’s less an anti-biotic than a true endotoxin, and works to prevent nearly any disease from affecting those dosed with it – and a single dose lasts about 70 years.
The mechanism of the drug involves stimulation of the reticulo-endothelial system (the white blood cells and such). It is apparently a biological drug with multiple sources, though generally not more than one or two to a plant.
The Okie ‘Cities in Flight’ use it as part of an their immortality drug suite. |
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Related drugs: Tricetyltriparanol
Made from the sundried meat of the giant aquatic Brazilian centipede, the Black Meat is a rare delicacy even among drug users.
| Little is known of the giant aquatic Brazilian centipede, and indeed, conventional taxonomies do not list it. It is unclear whether it the insect inhabits freshwater or the seas, although the former is more likely.
The centipedes are harvested by Interzone Inc., and taken to Interzone in North Africa where the flesh is dried by the hot Saharan sun. It is then ground up to form a light black powder, which can be injected or snorted by the user. Its effects are largely undocumented, although one user who was using it mixed with Bug Powder described the experience as ‘a Kafka high’, in reference to his story, Metamorphosis.
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Related drugs: Bug Powder, Mugwump Jism and The Drug That Does Not Exist.
A basic insecticide of the fifties in common use throughout New York City, Bug Powder is a yellowish powder that apparently kills bugs.
| I say ‘apparently’ because from what little we see of it, it’s none too effective on bugs. Indeed, it is sufficiently un-threatening that it can be eaten or injected by humans, which is hardly the quality of a deadly poison.
It apparently improves the sexual experience, at least for women, with one user stating that she no longer needed to reach orgasm thanks to the drug. Its other effects are not well-known, although one user who was using it mixed with Bug Powder described the experience as ‘a Kafka high’, in reference to his story, Metamorphosis. |
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Related drugs: The Black Meat, Mugwump Jism and The Drug That Does Not Exist.
There is no drug more pernicious or addicting than this. Fortunately, there is also no drug more rare or hard to find. In fact, you can only find it in the movie version of Naked Lunch.
| The Drug That Does Not Exist appears to be a creation of the fevered imagination of withdrawing multiply-addicted writer William Lee. God only knows what he was addicted to at that point - Bug Powder, Mugwump Jism, the Black Meat, and possibly even some real drugs like heroin or morphine…
For obvious reasons, little is known about this drug. But the smart money says that William Lee is right, and that withdrawal from it is a real bitch…
After all, if a man as experienced in the matters of addiction and withdrawal as William Lee is absolutely terrified of this particular withdrawal above all others, then it’s something the rest of us are better off not knowing too much about. |
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Related drugs: The Black Meat, Bug Powder and Mugwump Jism.
A street drug developed by the very people who are charged with policing it, Dust is a red powder that stimulates telepathic powers in humans (and some other species) for the duration of its use.
| Dust was created by the Psi-Corps in an effort to create more human telepaths. It has been an unmitigated failure in that respect, and remains potentially a huge embarassment to the Psi-Corps should its origins become public. In the meantime, the same people who created the drug have the job of hunting down and punishing those who use it.
The fact that the drug works on non-human races, notably the Narn, is most llikely indicative of the genetic meddling of the Vorlons with these races, with the drug tapping the telepathic genes implanted by that race. |
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KT-28’s, or Katies, as they are known on the street, are a psychoactive drug from the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The effects of this drug are never made clear in the book, only that it is a popular and addictive street drug with the ‘Knot-Tops’ of New York – a curious coincidence, given the drug’s name.
| However, in an apparently unrelated section of the book, Dr Manhattan mentions that he can synthesize lithium in limitless amounts, leading to a number of scientific advances based on cheap, abundant lithium.
On that basis, it is likely that this otherwise unknown drug is also a lithium derivative – and indeed, lithium has a long history as a drug used in psychiatric treatments, making it a likely choice. Based on the name of the drug, which sounds more like an abbreviated chemical formula than anything street, it’s likely that KT-28 is a drug with a legitimate psychiatric use that finds its way to the streets illicitly. |
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Secreted by the mysterious Mugwumps of Interzone, Mugwump Jism is a colorless liquid that produces intoxicating effects on humans.
| In fact, Mugwump Jism actually comes in two finely distinguished varieties, with similar effects. Strangely, what excites the Mugwumps (who are sentient bipeds of about the same size as humans, and appear to be some form of amphibian) to produce this drug is artistic creation, especially of a literary variety.
However, they do produce it even without this inspiration, albeit at a slower rate, and it is a sad but not uncommon sight in Interzone to see a chained Mugwump surrounded by a small circle of addicts sucking upon its excretions. |
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Related drugs: The Black Meat, Bug Powder and The Drug That Does Not Exist.
Also known as Slow Death, Death, or just plain D, Substance D is a powerful psychoactive drug derived from a small blue-flowering plant, Mors ontologica.
| The drug dampens the links between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, causing the two hemispheres to function independently. As a side effect, the user experiences vivid hallucinations (which are a side effect of the two sundered hemispheres attempting to reconnect). As the nickname Slow Death suggests, it is lethally addictive; long-term use can lead to two separate, mutually unaware personalities.
Substance D is produced at farms run by an organisation called New Path. Here, the Mors ontologica flowers are grown, and refined into the drug. These farms are staffed primarily by addicts of the drug, sent to them for their rehabilitation. |
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One of the more effective truth drugs out there, TC-6 is typically used only by government agencies for interrogations. Administered via direct injection, it leaves those it is administered to able to respond intelligently, although it will make most people somewhat literal-minded. It will also leave them utterly without volition of their own and thus unable to lie.
| It is possible to resist the effects of TC-6, although to do so requires considerable experience with truth drugs, and a certain amount of psychological conditioning, as well.
Very few people have this conditioning, however, so the drug remains useful. A single does will last for several hours, although the drug is known to have certain side-effects regarding impaired cardiac function in some people – potentially fatal side-effects – and there is no test to detemine ahead of time who will suffer them. |
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