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This Is Your Index on Drugs - TV Tropes

️Tue Aug 05 2008

Son, where did you learn to describe tropes about drugs?
You, Dad! I learned it by watching YOU!

Kids, talk to your parents about tropes.

Tropes:

Categories:

Hard-Drinking Tropes (alcohol)
I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin! (pseudo-drugs)
Pharmacology Tropes (medication)
The Smoking Section (cannabis/tobacco)
A Whole Latte Tropes (caffeine)

420, Blaze It: The number 420 is associated with cannabis.
Addiction Displacement: A person ends their addiction simply by becoming addicted to something else.
Addiction-Powered: A person who gains powers by abusing their own drug abuse.
Addiction Song: A song about drug abuse and addiction.
Addictive Magic: Where casting spells (or just having a magic power) gets you high.
Addled Addict: When an addict (former or current) is clearly struggling in life.
The Aggressive Drug Dealer: The local drug dealer gets you to try a drug that you can't resist, or else!
A.I. Getting High: When a robot takes drugs.
Alcoholic Parent: Parent who drinks a lot.
Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: A person ends up doing stupid things after being inebriated.
Alien Catnip: Something that that aliens go crazy for, often stuff that is mundane to us humans.
Anthropomorphic Vice: Addictive substances are personified or anthropomorphized.
Artistic Stimulation: Using drugs to be creative in the arts.
Better than Sex: Anything (including drugs) that makes the horizontal bop seem like a lesser thrill.
Binge Montage: A montage sequence that shows people getting drunk and/ or high.
Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: When limbs refuse to cooperate when you most need them.
Bottled Heroic Resolve: A normally heroic Hollywood health pack that often comes with undesired side effects.
But Liquor Is Quicker: Getting a person inebriated so that you can have sex with them.
Caffeine Failure: When not even coffee can keep you awake for a task at hand.
Chemically Induced Insanity: Intentionally inducing a desired effect onto another person (does not have to be madness).
Chemical Messiah: A drug or chemical that is worshipped like a god for its properties.
Cigarette of Anxiety: When a smoke is needed in a highly stressful situation.
Clandestine Chemist: Someone educated in chemistry decides to use their knowledge for illegal purposes, often the creation of drugs.
Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Seeing the very thing you're trying to give up everywhere around you, no matter how improbable.
Combat Drugs: When drugs are consumed to give an edge or courage in battle.
Comfort Food: Where binge-eating lots of food in one sitting is the high of choice.
Compressed Abstinence: Quitting a vice, though not exclusively drug-related.
Compressed Vice: Someone with a hidden vice or addiction attempts to get rid of it by the episode's end. Again, not exclusively drug-related, but has lots of examples.
Concussions Get You High: Getting hit on the head will have you act like you're on drugs.
Contemplating Your Hands: Getting high and questioning your hands, wondering about what their (very obvious) purpose is.
The Dark Side: An evil moral stance becomes addictive.
Demographically Inappropriate Humour: When a work made for a younger audience makes a joke about drugs or something else inappropriate.
Descent into Addiction: A character's journey from normal to an addicted mess.
Dr. Feelgood: A doctor who prescribes or provides dangerous drugs in an unethical manner.
Dramatically Delayed Drug: A drug doesn't work until it's most dramatic — or inconvenient.
Drugged Lipstick: There's really something in that kiss that makes you feel like you're under somebody's spell.
Drugs Are Bad: The story's moral is that drugs are very bad for you and should be avoided at all costs.
Drugs Are Good: The story's moral is that drugs are good for you, and are nothing to be afraid of trying.
Drugs Causing Slow-Motion: The surrounding world "slows down" when someone is on drugs.
Drunk on Milk: Getting drunk on a substance that, by all rights, should be impossible to get drunk on.
Drunken Master: Getting hammered makes you good at hammering bad guys...or with a hammer in a workshop.
Drunken Montage: A clip montage of people getting drunk.
Dry Crusader: A person who abstains from alcohol and tries to force everyone else to go without alcohol as well.
Erudite Stoner: The Stoner regularly delivers gems of philosophical wisdom, and may also double as a New-Age Retro Hippie.
Eternal Prohibition: The prohibition continues on into the future, where very few, if any, drugs are allowed.
Everybody Must Get Stoned: When a group of people get stoned, often by accident.
Evil Tastes Good: Drugs often get described as tasting of evil by evil characters; a lot of overlap exists here.
Fake High: A person falls under a placebo effect, usually by being given a non-drug substance in place of a drug.
Fantastic Drug: A fictional drug that appears in a sci-fi or fantasy-based story; also sometimes referred to as a designer drug.
Fingertip Drug Analysis: An old-timey way of determining what the drug is by an on-site taste test.
Forced Addiction: Turning someone into an addict by force or manipulation.
Frothy Mugs of Water: Beer that has been changed between regional edits to be water or milk.
Functional Addict: Drug addiction does not affect a person's day-to-day activities, such as work.
G-Rated Drug: A harmless consumable substance is depicted as having the same properties as a drug.
G-Rated Stoner: A character that acts like a stoner, sans any presence of drugs.
Gargle Blaster: An alcoholic drink so powerful that it makes the person who drank it either get absolutely hammered or instantly pass out.
Getting High on Their Own Supply: Exactly what it sounds like, a drug dealer partaking in the drugs they don't sell.
A Glass of Chianti: Evil people drink red wine.
Going Cold Turkey: Trying to get off the substance you're addicted to.
Good Flaws, Bad Flaws: Giving flaws to a previously flawless character (like a drug addiction).
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Those that smoke are bad, except in instances where that isn't the case.
Government Drug Enforcement: The man is forcing you to use drugs (often psychoactive ones).
Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Someone being dumped has ice cream to make them feel better.
High on Catnip: Animals getting high.
High on Homicide: Getting high on a specific killing.
High Times Future: A future (or alternate timeline) where all recreational drugs are legal.
Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Getting smarter through drugs, or dealing with a foreign fantastical concept with drugs.
Hookers and Blow: Situations where prostitutes and drugs (or women and wine) go hand in hand.
Immune to Drugs: Somebody who's impervious to the pills and the powder.
Impairment Shot: A camera shot to show someone being drugged, drunk, poisoned, injured, etc.
Intoxicated Superpower Snag: Drugs have very interesting effects on supernatural powers.
Intoxication Ensues: Someone gets drunk (or high) accidentally.
Intoxication Mechanic: The player character in a video game consuming drugs (or alcohol) causes an Interface Screw which hinders the player's ability to play the game.
It's Snowing Cocaine: Cocaine is shown in large (unrealistic) quantities.
Jack up with Phlebotinum: Accidentally using what a person thinks is a drug they crave, only for it to go wrong.
Junkie Parent: Parent who does drugs.
Junkie Prophet: A drunk or addict who uses drugs to foresee events.
Kissing Under the Influence: Where passion mixes with inebriation.
Klatchian Coffee: Coffee so high in caffeine that just one cup is enough to make you very jittery.
Liquid Courage: Drinking to curb social awkwardness and increase confidence.
Love Is a Drug: Love is depicted to have addictive qualities similar to drugs.
Magic Mushroom: Fantastical (often magical) drugs with hallucinogenic effects.
Marijuana Is LSD: The effects of certain drugs are overblown for the sake of drama or comedy.
Mistaken for Junkie: Someone mistakes a person for an addict.
Monster Organ Trafficking: Profiting off of a monster's parts. Sometimes, the parts are or can be transformed into psychedelic substances.
Mother's Little Helpers: A woman becomes addicted to pills, usually prescription pills.
Mr. Vice Guy: An otherwise benevolent or moral character with a vice or addiction never lets them outweigh their good qualities or sense of right. Not exclusively drug-related, but has plenty of examples.
Mushroom Samba: Drinking or eating foreign substances and hallucinating.
Must Have Caffeine: People addicted to coffee.
Must Have Nicotine: People addicted to cigarettes.
Nailed to the Wagon: Locking someone away until their addiction expires.
No Medication for Me: Losing a part of yourself when you take medication.
No Smoking: A form of censorship that replaces cigarettes with other things (often gum or lollipops).
Ode to Intoxication: Songs that celebrate getting high or buzzed on something, including drugs.
Of Course I Smoke: Person who normally doesn't smoke tries to make it appear that they do smoke.
Off the Wagon: A reformed character returning to their original vice.
One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Pregnant mothers shouldn't drink, lest the alcohol they consume ends up harming the baby.
Opium Den: The place where characters in an old-timey setting are shown tripping on opium.
Phlebotinum Pills: These pills give you special powers and/or abilities.
Playing Drunk: Sober people making it look like they've done a few drinks.
Post-Stress Overeating: Someone overeating in an attempt to reduce stress.
Power High: Gaining power is treated like being on drugs.
Psycho Serum: A serum that makes people go insane.
Quick Nip: Someone casually takes a quick sip of alcohol without interrupting what they're doing.
Recovered Addict: A character who was previously addicted to drugs/alcohol, but has come off the bandwagon and made a recovery.
Repulsive 'Roids: Users of anabolic steroids are portrayed as outcasts.
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: The three popular ingredients of a rock star.
Shag Wagon: A custom van that people use as a place to engage in sex and drugs.
Slipping a Mickey: Putting a little something in somebody's drink to get them to fall asleep or be unconscious.
Smoking Is Cool: When smoking makes you look like a badass.
Smoking Is Not Cool: When smoking makes you look like a total ass.
Smug Straight Edge: The Straight Edge will not hesitate to rub their views in people's faces–especially to actual drug users.
Spiked Blood: Vampires getting drunk or high from something added to somebody's blood.
The Sponsor: Someone who helps a former drug addict with their recovery (and may be a former addict themselves).
Staging an Intervention: When you need to get a drug addict off the stuff that's killing them.
Stimulant Speedtalk: Stimulants bring about a need to talk, often at high speed, often about nothing.
The Stoner: A classic character archetype: someone whose addiction to marijuana is a big part of their character.
Stoner Flick: A film featuring stoners that is preferably made to be watched while high.
Stoners Are Funny: The Stoner doubles as a Plucky Comic Relief.
Straight Edge: Someone who thinks Drugs Are Bad and will totally abstain from doing any drugs at all.
Straight Edge Evil: An antagonist who is also a Straight Edge; only the truly evil would do drugs, after all.
Toad Licking: Getting high from the secretions of psychoactive toads.
This Is Your Brain on Evil: When The Dark Side affects you like a drug in all the worst ways possible.
This Is Your Premise on Drugs: A common audience reaction where a work is believed to have been created through the use of drugs.
Uncoffee: Coffee or tea substitutes in fantasy or science fiction settings.
Undiscriminating Addict: A drug addict whose addiction is so strong that they'll try to get high off of anything.
Unsuspectingly Soused: When a person gets drunk on something they think is non-alcoholic, but definitely has alcohol.
Vodka Drunkenski: Russian characters that are alcoholics.
Wacky Fratboy Hijinx: The crazy things college students do in fraternities or sororities, which include drugs and alcohol.
Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: A vampire trying to not drink blood of a person despite the temptation.
Watch It Stoned: A movie is believed to be even better when viewed while intoxicated.
Watering Down: Despite its alcohol-related name, this covers cutting drugs as well.
What Did I Do Last Night?: After a night of being drunk or high, a person regains consciousness and panics while trying to remember what happened last night.
Wine Is Classy: Wine is portrayed as a sophisticated drink that only high-class, dignified people enjoy.
You Can See That, Right?: When getting high makes you see things that other people probably cannot.

...Apparently, the Media Watchdogs are not being very vigilant.