A Cyberpunk’s Take on Drug Culture

We’ve seen a lot of changes in 2018, many of them for the worse. There are constant reminders that the shadow of corporate and governmental fascism hangs over us. Technological anxiety grows as automation continues to drive the value of human labor in all its forms below the poverty line, our networks and computer systems grow in complexity, and the devices necessary to many of our daily lives seem to show us a lack of regard for our privacy, if not open hostility. Artificial intelligence is so quickly on the rise that it’s been offered movie roles. Meanwhile, ecological devastation continues to grow in severity, the seemingly-unchecked power of law enforcement stifles necessary action to fight against corrupt institutions, and as always, those who should be held accountable for their actions are let off with little more than a slap on the wrist. Those of us with no clear future and little opportunities to find a place in society are under the constant threat of obsoletion or reprehension from a variety of oppressive factors and uncertainties. And, like in so much science fiction, this all seems to have happened with the snap of a finger. This is no longer a game, it’s no longer the stuff that Bradbury, Orwell, and PKD warned us about. This is our reality.

So, without the ability to find an outlet for our outrage and anxiety, we repress our emotions, which manifests in so, so much twisted hentai, domestic abuse, and, as will be the focus of this article, drug use. Just to be clear: I in no way condone recreational drug abuse of any kind. It is of my opinion that to lead a healthy lifestyle, one needs outlets that are not harmful to oneself or others. But the state of modern employment requires us to sacrifice our time and energy to the whims of the powers-that-be with little wiggle room to explore our own potential. So, we find ourselves out of options.

But perhaps this is simply an expression of my personal journey through my own disillusionment and growing anxiety. After all, cyberpunk likes to present us with glitzy future drugs that allow us to surpass our mundane abilities (occasionally in manners that seem supernatural), alter our perceptions and moods, or are necessary to function. These drugs can be distributed legally (or perhaps illegally) through megacorporations bent on controlling the populace through addiction, siphoned from mass supply into the black market, or manufactured on the street. And, if you’re in the same boat as me, you might be asking how this is any different than the world we live in. The short answer: it’s not. Most of the drug cultures cyberpunk depicts (outside of those of the virtual, nanite-based, or digitally downloaded variety) have their roots in reality.

While he wasn’t the first to explore the subject, the future of drugs was most famously pioneered by Aldous Huxley through Soma, a drug that induces euphoria in its users in his influential dystopian work Brave New World. And though mandatory emotion-suppressing drugs have been a staple of many dystopian works (see Equilibrium, THX 1138) the examples most relevant to cyberpunk itself stem largely from the works of proto-cyberpunk author Philip K. Dick, who was a notorious amphetamine addict and experimented with a cornucopia of other perception-altering drugs, among them LSD and sodium pentothal. Oftentimes the drugs he predicted had supernatural abilities, such as Can-D and its competitor Chew-Z in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, which causes users to hallucinate that they have more ideal living conditions and belongings (a criticism of the rabid consumerism of the time) and KR-3, a drug that causes parallel realities themselves to bleed together in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.

However, PKD’s most prolific and realistic depiction of drug culture can be found in A Scanner Darkly, my all-time favorite novel. In it, the drug Substance D has a more subtle effect as a powerful hallucinogen while also causing the minds of its abusers to break down, resulting in dissociation from reality and identity. A Scanner Darkly was published several years after the War on Drugs was declared by the Nixon administration in 1971, as well as the loss of many of Dick’s friends to copious drug use following the veritable explosion and illegal distribution of a wide variety of synthesized drugs such as amphetamines, lysergic acid, opioids, and other narcotics. A Scanner Darkly examines the destruction these drugs wreak upon the lives of their unsuspecting users, as well as critiques the policies enforced by the very institutions that first created them, envisioned through a sci-fi lens that’s only mere degrees from the reality of its time.

After all, before leaking into society en masse, LSD was adopted by the United States government as a part of the MKUltra project, which you may be aware of as the attempts at mind control shadily puppeteered on behalf of the government behind our so-called democracy. Similarly, amphetamines, cocaine, PCP, and heroin were first created and distributed to the masses as cure-alls, pain relievers, and anesthetics before their addictive and degenerative properties could properly be examined, and have since been produced as street drugs after their subsequent prohibition. Meanwhile, drugs like Adderall, a legalized, controlled dose of amphetamine, continue to rise as a popular-but-debilitating nootropic among college students and professionals working in high-stress fields, commonly distributed on social media platforms. Similarly, the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs have been ingrained in the cultures of athletes and non-athletes alike for years.

And don’t forget those wonderful medications whose prescriptions sometimes seem thrown about like confetti—it’s no neuropozyne, but in order to be deemed mentally or physically fit by society (and to be fair, often with good reason), those of us suffering from severe anxiety, nerve damage, or other perceived disabilities require a strictly scheduled dosage of pills. This keeps us at the mercy of the owners of their patents, who oftentimes heavily inflate the prices of these drugs to keep us occupied with steady occupation in order to keep access to affordable health plans. Designer drugs like ecstasy and Quaaludes (and their dystopian equivalents) come and go, but dependency, whether or not it’s purely mental, tries its damnedest to be forever.

And, despite its reputation as the go-to drug of choice by men’s rights activists and internet trolls alike, vaping is on the rise, becoming an epidemic among teens, attracted by the discretion, flavors, and effects aerosolized nicotine provides. I admit to jumping onto the vaping bandwagon after quitting cigarettes, my apartment shamefully littered with cartridges half-full of this legal-yet-addictive substance a la John Anderton’s neuroin habit, before the long-term effects of inhaling propylene glycol have been fully researched (and nicotine, for the record, is a confirmed carcinogen).

Furthermore, certain pens can be modified to inconspicuously vaporize THC oil—and THC, in its many varieties of use, is rising rapidly over alcohol consumption among younger American generations. It’s also noteworthy to mention that, despite its acceptance by a growing portion of popular culture, marijuana use is still arbitrarily illegal throughout most of the United States, possibly due to its effectiveness in a raging class war that plagues our culture.

So, in a global society that has been ravaged by, essentially, humans hacking their own biology, either recreationally or in a misguided bid to unlock one’s potential over the span of decades—centuries, even, if we include somewhat-natural alternatives like alcohol, opium, and tobacco—what exactly makes a drug befitting of cyberpunk culture? There’s a certain charm to watching a cyborg smoking a cigarette or an android drinking a cocktail, sure. We’ve also covered before how drugs might transmute from their chemical bases to digital ones in the future by hijacking the nervous system directly. But, for context, in an attempt to embrace the dystopian world we live in, my livelihood and emotional state are dictated by four drugs—caffeine (to improve my work performance), nicotine (to calm my nerves), THC (to unwind), and levetiracitam (an anti-seizure medication I am dependent on in order to be able to drive). Three of those drugs I take in pill form.

The answer to the question posed lies in the methods by which we pick our poisons. Cyberpunk drugs require consistency, convenience, and an illusion of safe use—in this way, Adderall and e-cigarettes fit the bill squarely. After all, alcohol has numerous side effects if not consumed properly, ranging from something as impotent as a bitch of a hangover to alcohol poisoning. Drugs inhaled through the nostrils, such as cocaine and methamphetamine erode the barrier between the nasal cavities and the brain. Meth, like crack cocaine, can also be smoked, which leads to other disastrous side effects among crippling addiction. When frequently injected by needle, heroin use essentially eats the flesh by causing veins to collapse around the point of entry.

And as twisted and abusive as they may be, all drugs when consumed in a non-homogenized fashion seem to have their own personalities. More common and socially-acceptable chemicals like caffeine can be found in a wide variety of products, from soda to chocolate, but is most commonly consumed as coffee, a beverage that is enjoyable by its own right. Hand-rolled cigarettes, delicately placed in stately cases, may never fully vanish among those who still attempt to revive 20^th century affectations. There’s a whole internet of stoners finding new, inventive ways of alternatively feeling the effects of the devil’s lettuce (some more consistent than others). Many of these take hours, if not days, of effort, lending them a sort of handcrafted, personal touch akin to something you might find in domestic revival movements or the Etsy marketplace.

There’s a reason the pill has become an icon in cyberpunk fiction—most notably in the Akira manga, and to a lesser extent, its film adaptation—even though pills have been around since the 1800s. Each pill contains a consistent, controlled dose, and there’s no real hassle if you’re purely a consumer. Take one to feel the effects lightly, take a handful to get fucked up. Other drugs like the bullet-time-inducing reflex booster in the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay reveal (much like Dredd’s Slo-Mo, which has suspiciously familiar effects) or the aforementioned neuroin are distributed in inhalers, filled with predetermined dosages. Even the eye drops in Looper, while not a fully cyberpunk film in nature, have a coldly medicinal quality to them. There’s no place for the warmth and comfort that connects us to our vices, because it doesn’t matter how you get high. It only matters that you do, and do it quickly—there’s no time to pursue any alternatives such as hobbies, meditation, or something as simple as a good night’s rest and exercise. In a fully cyberpunk world, the hazards, inconveniences, and consequently, the hesitations of drug use, whether legal or illegal, no longer exist—only the effects. Consume at your own risk.