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Clearly you're not an actual nurse.
Actually, I am. Or was, technically, I'm retired.
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Most chemicals are drugs in the right amounts.
Not even close. All chemicals are just compounds, mixtures of elements. Considering all the possible combinations available to the periodic table, surprisingly few of them are biologically active and/or helpful. Certainly not "most chemicals".
(Yes, I'm being pedantic. No, I'm not going to let a misstep slide when someone attacks my qualifications with something they should have learned in high school chemistry.)
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Most chemicals are also food in smaller amounts, or poisons in larger amounts. When a person chews or eats the bark of a willow tree we call it part of their "diet", but when they take a prepared dosage of the acetylsalicylic acid that the bark contains we call it a "drug", and of course if you inject a massively overconcentrated dose into someone's bloodstream, we say that you've "poisoned" them. But it all amounts to the same thing - a specific substance is introduced to the body and has a direct affect on its operation.
No, no, no. Willowbark isn't regulated by the FDA, but there are specialized doctors and nurses who prescribe the stuff. They're called naturopaths. It's still a drug you take, since there's no chemical difference between the raw form and the processed version. Oh, and just because: most chemicals aren't food. There's only three chemicals that are food: proteins, carbohydrates, and fat. (Alcohol too, but it's an edge case.) Everything else is everything else, as any nurse would tell you after passing Nutrition 101.
By your example, water is a drug. Too much water can kill you (google the story on the Wii if you want an example, I'm too lazy to do it for you), and it's a chemical "dihydrogen monoxide". Sorry, but if you try and tell me giving someone water is equal to giving someone rohypnol (they're both drugs, right?) then I'm going to laugh.
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Even if you were to insist upon distinguishing between excreted local substances and ingested foreign ones, Tailored Pheromones would still qualify as a drug because the person being affected is not the one excreting the pheromones - the pheromones in question are entirely foreign to their body, and thus would qualify as a drug. There is no appreciable difference between extracting acetylsalicylic acid from a willow tree and having it be swallowed by someone, and extracting (and possibly synthesizing) pheromones in one person, and then dispersing them through the air to be inhaled by another.
You have got to be kidding me. First of all, pheromones are natural. People excrete them all the time, literally. Again, natural isn't always better, but it's basically stuff you sweat. The guy with tailored pheromones is basically putting out more sweat. Your analogy is flawed because people don't normally ingest asprin in a normal environment, but they do absorb pheromones every day. Tailored Pheromones don't introduce anything new, they just add more of what's there.
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It's not, actually, but that's alright. Even if it was, the point of the Tailored Pheromones 'ware is to increase the potency of the pheromones and their effects substantially.
*Sigh* Wrong again. This time, I'm just going to point you at a
WebMD article on the subject that shows what pheromones do and don't do in regards to human behavior. I'd look up a harder science journal article, but I have the feeling it'd go over your head.
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I know what Rohypnol is, and what it is not, and I was not implying that it was anything other than what it is. The point I was making was regarding the morality of the action and the motivations behind it, not the physical mechanisms in play. If you are willing to secretly expose someone else to a foreign compound in order to more effectively control their behavior to benefit your ao,s or suit your whims, that's kind of abominable. The only difference between secretly drugging someone in order to rape them and secretly drugging them get them to be more susceptible to influence is a matter of scope and scale.
You're not secretly drugging them. Pheromones, even in SR4.5/5, simply aren't that powerful. It's just a little more of what your body would already do. To use your analogy, tailored pheromones are the equivalent of switching someone's single drink for a double. They still drink it, and it might give you a mild edge, but nothing spectacular.
Hey, do you remember the 80's when pheromones were the latest craze? Pheromone sprays appeared everywhere, guaranteeing that you would turn into a stud at the push of a button. And for the most part, the sprays delivered on what they promised: huge pheromone releases. Of course, none of them worked, so they soon faded into obscurity. Unfortunately, they didn't fall out of urban myth.
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What, exactly, does this have to do with the morality of willingly attempting to manipulate a person's behavior or state of mind via chemicals?
Well, 1) chemicals are not required, and 2) they're not even the best tools for the job. A skilled orator can manipulate millions of people at once, while pheromones can only affect a small room, if you're lucky.
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That said, I concede it was an extreme example - in fact, that was the point. They're not equivalent immoral acts, but they're comparable, which is what the juxtaposition was meant to bring attention to. A more fitting comparison might be a pickup artist buying someone drinks in order to lower their inhibitions - except in that case the target is actually aware of the fact that they're being exposed to a drug, and they can choose not to partake. Not so with Tailored Pheromones - they're hidden and undetected, and cannot be avoided.
They're not even comparable. If I buy a lady a drink, and make it a double when she asked for a single, that's maybe mildly immoral but nothing serious. She's still getting what she ordered, and can control the effects herself. If I douse a lady with Rohypnol, I strip away her decision-making ability and her memory, so she can't consent to anything and won't remember what happened. She has no control over that, I've just stripped her control away. That's a whole different world of immoral behavior.
If I approach a lady at the bar tonight, she's *going* to be exposed to my pheromones. Period. No if's, ands, or buts. Now, in 2070, you can control your pheromone output, so you release more of what you normally do. You haven't exposed anybody to anything they wouldn't have encountered anyway, it's just a little more. And quite frankly, that little more isn't a big deal. Exposing someone to something they wouldn't normally encounter-- like Rohypnol-- is far and away different.
Bottom line:
Pheromones are NOT mind control! They're not even good aphrodisiacs! They can be a useful aid, but that's about it.