Orphaned/Sandbox/Pharmacology Tropes

Ah, the wonderful world of medications, drugs, and poisons. Staples of Murder Mysteries and Medical Dramas, and not too infrequently plot devices in Science Fiction (hard or otherwise).

May be related to Biology Tropes. See also This Is Your Index On Drugs.

See also Polite Dissent, which often reports on pharmacology misuses in comic books and TV shows, primarily pointing out when the wrong drugs are being used, super heroes blandly hand out DEA Controlled Substances, and where the dosages are ridiculously off. The author of the blog is a comic book fan and a licensed doctor, so the articles can be quite informative. He also does surprisingly comprehensive write-ups of House from the same perspective.

Tropes:


 * Alcohol Is Poison
 * Bitter Almonds
 * G-Rated Drug
 * Immune to Drugs
 * Instant Sedation
 * Love Is in the Air
 * Magic Antidote
 * Marijuana Is LSD
 * Psycho Serum
 * Super Serum
 * Truth Serum

Should probably be on Marijuana Is LSD

 * Death Note features a criminal who his bio says is extremely violent and deranged because he is a marijuana addict. Marijuana's effects do not include violent criminal behavior. This could be due to Marijuana Is LSD, or due to the fact that marijuana use is highly stigmatized in Japan, to the point where Paul McCartney wasn't allowed into the country for ten years following a pot bust.

Would kill someone in real life

 * On Dexter, the sedative he uses on his victims (which also incidentally takes effect immediately) is a real-life tranquilizer, used to sedate elephants. Apparently, getting it on a human's skin can kill them.

Side effects are wrong or exaggerated

 * An 80s story arc on General Hospital had a character get Easy Amnesia from exposure to a chemical that occasionally produces short term memory loss, but far more often results in crippling brain damage from even mild exposure.
 * More than one classic mystery fiction writer assumed that aspirin was not just a pain reliever but a sedative as well. Ngaio Marsh was especially prone to having characters take aspirin as an insomnia remedy.

Instant poison

 * Chuck likes poisons. One particular example had an enemy spy inject herself with a large quantity of ricin to avoid capture, because "everyone talks". She of course dies instantly, despite the fact that ricin can take days to work, slowly shutting down its victim's organs and rendering them in a position of considerable pain. Just tell yourself that the large syringe had hit a major blood vessel and she died of internal bleeding.

Action of drug is wrong

 * A recent episode of The Simpsons had Lisa being put on antidepressants and immediately falling into a blissful and oblivious state complete with hallucinations. In real life antidepressants simply get you back to normal; they don't give you instant happiness. And they certainly don't cause visual hallucinations.
 * Tsukihime, Kohaku uses the dried crushed seeds of Korean morning glories (aka datura) to give several characters hallucinations and make them think they're going insane. So far so good, but it also depicts the effects of the hallucination as giving the victim a sort of hypnotized pseudo-mind control state, where Kohaku can whisper to them something while unconscious and have them believe her.