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also - http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624994.700

[Crane]

[SPEC] Ceretin And Cognovia

[Leeravitz]

My suspicion is that Ceretin style neuro - enhancement easily shades over into drug abuse. We know that the City has a 'drug problem', and its interesting that the Academy obviously prides itself on taking an anti - drug stance. There is plenty of suggestion that use of neural stims during the Perplex City Academy Games is frowned upon in the same way that atheletes using steroids to improve performance is frowned upon on Earth. The fact, however, that there are prohibitions against it suggests that the boundaries are frequently overstepped.

It just makes me wonder whether Cognivia have a black market arm; or is it just the case that copious quantities of ceretin (otherwise acceptable at prescribed doses) are siphoned off by black marketeers??

If Ceretin should be taken only in careful dosages, then who knows what effects it may have on those who go over the limits??

[Violet]

the question remains - why does anyone need it? Kind of strengthens the argument that everyone has to be clever, just like on Earth everyone has to be beautiful. If you can't take it to attend the Academy or the Games, ordinary folk must use it for something

[Leeravitz]

Yes. I think it very likely that the peer pressure to be seen to be intelligent in Perplex City is massively important. You never know, maybe *that's* why Violet (the in - game character!) seems to get off on slumming it a bit.

I guess there is no reason why Ceretin was not invented initially with the intention that it have useful applications - and, presumably, if it can be so openly advertised in the Sentinel, its perfectly legal. But maybe only within certain usage boundaries. It might be the case that the Academy allowed for usage at one time, but decreed it to give unfair advantage and now prohibit use.

Or, maybe I set us on the wrong track when I suggested Ceretin was abused as a drug. Maybe Ceretin isn't. But there are black market versions of cognitive enhancers - much cheaper (Ceretin sounds like its produced for the upmarket crowd by a wealthy conglomerate) and probably much less pure. Maybe that's where the drugs problems cut in. In that sense, it wouldn't be dissimilar to what happened with LSD, say, in the 60's - initially a lab product, which became big on the black market scene, once low level chemists realised they could synthesise it...

[POTUS]

Violet wrote:

[Arashi]

I dont think there would be an advertisment on PC Sentinel.com if it was illegal...

[daveg01]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18625011.900 another
article on "smart drugs" in new scientist.