OT: Hey You Weirdos!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Imperator Fyron said:

Only while on the drug... Most certainly not after it has worn off.

Yes, but if you use it a lot, you can get paranoid even when not on the drug, and the hallucinations can appear too. But that's only if you're really hooked on the stuff, if you take a heck of a lot of it, like, 1970's a heck of a lot of it.

dogscoff said:

LOL!

"Hey, look at that!" *points upwards, then quickly produces two drinking straws loaded with Charlie, inserts them into other person's nostrils and blows*

No, seriously. Cocaine can have pretty major psychological effects, but that requires that you take it in through your nose. Eating it will result in the keeling-over almost comatose sleep I mentioned.

Cannabis is not such a good idea, since it's easy to detect (i.e. smell) and when she smells it, the woman is sure to get the hell out of wherever she smells it.

Slick said:
Crystal meth will mess you up, but I don't recommend using it in a story. It actually destroys your brain. CAT scans clearly show holes in a brain after sustained use. It also alters personality, usually permanently after not much use.

Perhaps that just might be a good idea.

AgentZero said:
.....he's also destroyed what made her the person he loved.

Burning holes in one's brain (crystal meth) is a very effective way of changing one's personality extremely dramatically.

On the other hand, a rebar through the forehead will do the same. I'm not joking; some railroad worker in the late 19th century IIRC had an accident where a steel rod was blown clean through the side of his forehead. He survived, but he was a radically different person after that, got sacked and spent the rest of his life traveling with a circus sitting on a chair with a steel rod in his head. Then again, this might not be such a good idea for the story.....

[Fyron]

Strategia_In_Ultima said:
Yes, but if you use it a lot, you can get paranoid even when not on the drug, and the hallucinations can appear too.

Paranoia, maybe, if you already have a paranoid psychology to begin with. Any powerful (and negative) emotional experience, such as a bad trip, can intensify latent psychological disorders (such as paranoia and schizophrenia). Hallucinations? No. LSD does not permanently alter your brain or live in your spine or anything like that, so it does not continue affecting you after the dose has worn off. Any sort of flashback is a normal procedure for the brain, related to powerful emotional experiences. This is not a property of LSD itself, but of how memories work in general. You can get flashbacks from any experience that triggers profound emotional response, such as falling in love with someone. Please refer to this FAQ on LSD: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_info7.shtml

[bearclaw]

Strategia_In_Ultima saidOn the other hand, a rebar through the forehead will do the same. I'm not joking; some railroad worker in the late 19th century IIRC had an accident where a steel rod was blown clean through the side of his forehead. He survived, but he was a radically different person after that, got sacked and spent the rest of his life traveling with a circus sitting on a chair with a steel rod in his head. Then again, this might not be such a good idea for the story.....

While this story is true, the bar did not remain in his head. What happened was that it struck him in the chin and went through the top of his skull, severed the frontal lobe of his brain from the rest. What ended up happening is that there was no concious or chemical control of his moods. Without any promting or causes, he would have radical and unprecicable mood swings which were so dramatic that he had no control of his personallity. When he was mad, he was nothing but mad, or sad, or glad.

As an interesting comment on the LSD discussion, it has been found that the actual chemical LSD causes a chain-reaction of 'mis-fires' in the brain that last for several hours. The initial cause (the chemical) is actually processed out of the body within 45 min. As a former heavy LSD user (it was a long time ago), I can attest that there are NO such things as LSD induced flash-backs or other long-term affects. (whoa dude, look at the colors of that Phong... it looks so real... BLAST. cool dude, even it's lasers feel real...)

That said, apparently there is still a federal law in the US (drafted in the 60's duing government LSD tests) that states that I've taken enough LSD to be labled as clinically insane...

[Suicide Junkie]

The man's name is Phineas Gage, in case you are interested in looking him up.

[El_Phil]

An actual question about the story (I do hate to drag us back on topic, but I am curious.)

The thing with most of these is that the person is going to notice, I mean you would know you hadn't taken the drugs that you got caught with. Of course she may not know who is doing it, but she'll know someone's setting her up. That could be you want the story to go, but as you said 'stealthily' I wasn't sure.

[Suicide Junkie]

Thats the advantage of the infra-sound plant... There is no obvious problem.
Just a gradual degradation of their quality of life with no apparent cause.

Getting power to it would be the hard part, but you could probably plant it somewhere in the basement nobody ever goes. Plug it in beside the furnace, and stick it inside the ventilation ducts so the sound emanates all over the house.

[AgentZero]

Hmmm... This is all most interesting... I kinda like the infra-sound plant but it's a wee bit to 'techie' for the feel of my story. Though perhaps sneaking into the cities computers and making them think that the street outside her apartment needs digging up at 2am might do the trick. Hadn't thought of sleep deprivation, that might be neat.
BTW, the drugs thing is mainly to be administered to people around her, when I said 'destroyed the person he loves' I was referring to emotionally as opposed to physically fubar'd. Since the drugs are to be 'taken' by others then whether or not they're traceable isn't terribly relavent. What about PCP? I've heard it does seriously nasty things to a person, but other than that I don't know too much. Drugwise I'm looking for something that will make someone very violent and aggressive with a single dose.
As for poisons, they won't be getting used until 'endgame' and I'm mainly looking for something relatively fast acting (5-10min after ingestion), and tasteless. Whether or not it's traceable is irrelavent. Keep the ideas coming, this stuff is great! In a sick twisted depraved kinda way anyway.

[Suicide Junkie]

Have you never hooked up a high frequency signal into a speaker in a tech class?
Pitched high enough that the teacher can't hear it due to age, but some of the students can?

Quite entertaining to watch, but does get on your nerves after only a few minutes; even if you turn it up enough that can't hear it personally.

You could probably introduce an inaudible squeal to a gift radio without adding components if you googled the right things.