What recreational drugs can be produced with limited resources and technology?

Setting:

Earth-sized planet, its inhabitants are human settlers and live in towns protected by custom-sized atmospheres. The rest of the planet is barren and always was.

The population uses the equivalent of late 19th century technology, except with machines powered by magic and no access to petroleum.
Their agricultural resources are restricted. Not that the people go hungry, but they can't afford to mismanage their cultivated lands. They practice fish farming, but don't have domesticated animals bigger than a duck.

Because of the setting, it would be impossible for these people to synthetize designer drugs, or to produce enough grain or fruit alcohol for mainstream consumption.

For plot purposes, I need this world to have recreational drugs.

I'm trying to find one or several drugs that could fit these uses:

• In social gathering, a light consumption helps people socialize and have fun. Consuming too much would lead to stupid behavior and/or some physical symptoms like vomiting or passing out.

• Either an overconsumption of a social drug or the consumption of a harder one creates a strong addiction and takes a heavy toll on a person physical and mental health.

• One drug can be consumed regularly without major adverse effects, like coffee. If this one is impossible, I can work with "trace amounts of drug X is present in a common drink or food".

Also the plants or animals used to produce them where brought from Earth to this planet.

For now I chose to make psychoactive mushrooms the most common recreational drugs, because they can be cultivated in small spaces and relatively short amounts of time.

Other possibilities include marijuana (cultivated indoors), psychoactive toads (not sure how to make this one work) and some sort of cactus that could be grown in the wastelands.

Question :

Given these people resources, and leaving the legal questions and the government's stance out of the equation ;

What recreational drugs could be produced and consumed in this setting?

posted about 8 years ago

Babika Babaka‭

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