Conversation on a thread about dead human spawns (military, scientists, campers, drug dealers) and a Let’s Play where Rycon Roleplays ran across a drug deal spawn with a LOT of marijuana got me to thinking a bit.
In our world, Wacky Weedus is slowly becoming legal in the US. CDDA is our world at the base, but even less pleasant for the working class - hence a lot of alcohol and hard drugs. Does that mean that MJ was never legalized in that timeline? Or at least, not in the New England area?
Further to that, with the proliferation of hard drugs, I’m surprised that more bandits don’t spawn with them. Out of most groups, organized crime and gangs would be in a pretty good place to survive the initial chaos. They’re used to running, have bolt holes or safe spaces set up, and crucially are armed better than most civilians. It’d be a natural transition for gangs or criminals to transition to raiders or warlords. Or, if they wanted a cachet of respectability, “protectors” who exact tribute and enslave people. The drugs would come with them. There’s a crapton of people in our reality that could cook up a lot of addictive substances with components that aren’t on your typical survivor’s radar. Note that doesn’t involve cooking them SAFELY, just that they could do it. And there’d be comparatively large stashes of the harder to make stuff like cocaine or whatever, more than enough to last a while (especially if you cut it).
Which finally comes to my last thought. You sometimes find mutagen on drug dealer spawns. Makes sense, as the stuff is addictive, and you could sell it for a pretty penny to the kind of people that go to the “resorts” in game. But…mixing mutagen with other drugs, or even using it to make unnatural hybrids of poppies and peyote (as an example) raises interesting possibilities. That’s one way to, perhaps accidentally, make a Medical mutagen. Cartel enforcers who shrug off bullet wounds would be a HUGE advantage pre-Cataclysm, even compared to bionic enhancement.
Of course, none of this matters very much, indeed may not even be relevant to the current lore of the setting, but it’s an interesting distraction to think about.
Or these are were everyday people just too stoned to fight back a Zombie attack…
There are some reinforced and secured greenhouses, indicating that there is at least some legal marijuana.
On the other hand, as with alcohol too, you can circumvent taxes by growing* it in your basement, which would be interesting enough for some drug dealers.
*No. Not the alcohol. That one gets destilled.
BRB, growing alcohol!
Seriously, though, good point. I remember that I’d occasionally run across a basement growing site now and again, usually full of the sticky icky along with storerooms full of seeds and leaves awaiting processing. Oddly, they would spawn with Soldier and Kevlar zombies. Could be legal, could be illegal, doesn’t really confirm either way but it is interesting.
I found places with privacy fences with the whole backyard being a marijuana farm and I also found a house that had an interior courtyard that had marijuana growing in it.