"The drugs don't work, they make you worse" Topic

In your view, in a post-Apocalypse world, would the threat from drug-addicts needing their fix far outweigh the fighting capabilities of any other survivor groups, and, in wargame rule terms, should they be treated as 'fanatics'?

Actually, what is the short-, medium-, long-term outlook for drug addicts and suppliers once the ballon goes up?

In wargame rules terms. Thanks

Addicts would probably be more likely to be among the early dead, given the need to get their fix outweighing common sense. Suppliers more likely survivors since they are ruthless characters.

Like Diabetics and anyone else needing sustained life maintenance, drug addicts would become extinct.Dealers would just find something else to sell. Addicts make poor fighters due to their perception and decision making processes deteriorate constantly.

Addicts make poor fighters due to their perception and decision making processes deteriorate constantly

Therefore, in the first few rounds of a game is there scope for them being classed 'fanatics' and then, say after round 3, the fighting ability diminishes one ability level thereafter, or even plunges to rock bottom?

I see them as an ocassional deadly menace encountered in a post-Apocalypse/Zombie world.

Some rather odd ideas about the nature of drug use and addiction here.

AS noted above, long term drug users (be it medicinal recreational etc) would either die off, go cold turkey or find different stimulants. Lots of magic mushrooms around this time of year.

Also not sure about performance being degraded, benzedrine and other amphetamines were issue items in WW2. As were half pints of rum.

There are many variables involved but how, exactly, do you plan to organize a bunch of meth heads so they are at their "peak" for the scenario? Unless your game takes place the day after your catastrophic event, the short answer to your question is "no." Once the pharmacies and hospitals have been looted and the drugs are gone, drug abusers will die off pretty fast, or they will cure themselves. Most drug addicts are likely to be early victims. I don't see them being any danger in a post-apoc situation, unless you go far enough into the timeline that illicit drug manufacturers are back in operation.

79th PA +1.

Some addicts won't survive long, either by the circumstance of their addiction (withdrawal, and general weakening of physiology) or by the hands of others – the first pillhead caught breaking into the village's painkiller stash is going to be strung up and left to rot pour encourager les autres. Expect thievery in general to garner swift and capital punishment. Some will make it through to the other side, though.

Low level dealers think they'll survive – they won't. They're simply not smart enough. Cunning will get them by for a while, though. It's the mid-level managers that will be organizing their people into a semi-functioning, if unpleasant, society. Expect them to use their dwindling stock of processed drugs as rewards, and as force-multipliers (note the use of amphetamines and other drugs by insurgents in Iraq and East Africa). But the ability to make those will be gone, rather quickly, not to mention the imports. So, early on, you'd have some effects in a tabletop game.

Post-apocalyptic-ly, I think marijuana will be the drug of choice. Self-medication for stress in a PA environment may be commonplace. Booze will be common, too.

Cellar, my first thought was just that – IF you assume they've had a fix recently, and have come looking for more, they'd be fanatics early on, only to have their fighting qualities degrade.

If – IF – you assume they're just looking for a fix wherever they can get it, then I agree they'd be dead in short order. I say that as someone who works with those who are (sadly) chemically dependent.

In response to a related topic, "4 minutes to raid the post apocalyptic pharmacy":

I'm going straight for the oxycodone.

No, I'm not going to give myself a blissed-out overdose and leave the cruel world.

I'm going to take control of as much supply as I can of a highly addictive product that I can then barter for goods and services.

I'm also taking all the tobacco products I can carry, for the same reason.

A man has to earn a living, after all.

In response to a related topic, "4 minutes to raid the post apocalyptic pharmacy":

I'm going straight for the feminine hygiene products and the chocolate.

Forget being a hero… I'll be almost a demigod…

In response to a related topic, "4 minutes to raid the post apocalyptic pharmacy":

I'm going straight for the little blue pills.

It is going to take a lot of hard work to repopulate the earth and I want a statue erected in my honor!

4 minutes to raid the post apocalyptic pharmacy

TMP link

zoneofcontrol for Most Optimistic About the Coming Apocalypse (no pun intended).