Fictional Drug or Disease Names

Cafe Society
1

In the first Robocop movie, one of the plot devices was the illegal drug called “Nuke”. I always thought the writers could have done better than “Nuke” for the name. Why couldn’t they have used any of the hundred real street names for heroin or meth? “Nuke” sounds like what a third-grader would come up with.

For a similar example, in *The Stand * the super flu that escapes the government lab takes on the name “Captain Trips”. I think King could have done much better with the name.

I just found one more from Outbreak: “Motaba”, obviously based on “Ebola”. I think this name works well and isn’t too conspicuous.

Does anybody have more examples of fictional drug names or diseases? What would you change them to if you could?

2

My favorite:
Ephemerol in Cronenberg’s Scanners.
It was a tranquilizer that had a nasty side effect – when given to pregnant women they produced babies with psychic abilities.

They produced some great 1940s-era advertising copy for Ephemerol for the film

3

Shortly after “child proof” bottle caps appeared on the market, Saturday Night Live had a parody commercial for a pain reliever called “Triopenin”.

4

I always thought the fake drug Provasic from The Fugitive sounded very real.

…and, once again Wiki takes the joy out of discovery.

5

**GLeeMONEX ** - From The Kids in the Hall’s Brain Candy.

“Gleemonex makes you feel like it’s 72 degrees in your head, all the time.”

6

I always thought that “The Red Death” was a good disease name.

7

Unfortunately, Wikipedia’s list of fictional diseases omits The Green Death, which in Vonnegut’s Slapstick is caused by inhaling microscopic Chinese people. The Chinese have shrunk themselves to microscopic size to reduce resource consumption and … Well, it doesn’t really get much more sensible. The Green Death wipes out most of the population of the US, and the survivors devolve into a bizarre feudal system, in which Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain becomes the King of Manhattan and builds an impressive collection of candlesticks.

8

The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases examines a long list of ailments such as Ballistic Organ Syndrome, Noumenal Fluke, Hsing’s Spontaneous Self-Flaying Sarcoma, Poetic Lassitude, and Mongolian Death Worm Infestation.

9

Cronenberg’s The Brood has a therapy technique called “Psychoplasmics” which ends up manifesting itself in rather gruesome disease-like fashion.

And of course, Brave New World had “soma”.

10

Huxley’s soma had a great promo line: “All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.”

There actually is a prescription drug on the market now called Soma, but it doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as Huxley’s invention.

If you want to see some nifty invented diseases, check out antivaccinationist websites. For example, this nutter has invented one called “VIDS”.

11

There’s a list on Wikipedia.

12

Was King making a reference to Jerry Garcia here, or did people start calling Garcia “Captain Trips” after The Stand came out? If so, that’s a little creepy.

By the way, did anyone hear that there’s a list on Wikipedia?

13

Another unfortunate oversight in the Wiki entry is Sexlexia.

14

From Red Dwarf
Better Than Life a VR videogame that tapped directly into your brain (using cranial probes), accessed your subconscious mind to play out a “reality” scenario that was “better than life”, a great game as long as you’re not a complete screw-up with a subconsciousness that hates you and wishes you harm (like Rimmer) BTL was so addictive that the user never wanted to leave, and would slowly waste away and die in real life

Bliss a powdery, brown substance that made the user think they were God, which was laughable, as when you’re on Bliss you can’t even tie your own shoes, the other problem with Bliss was that you could become addicted to it by just looking at it…which made drug busts rather a problem…

15

“The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking.”

16

The Legion of Super-Heroes had ProFem and ProMen, drugs used to change gender. Remember Shavaugh/Sean Erin?

17

There was a fictional drug in A Scanner Darkly called Substance D (also referred to as Slow Death, Death or D) that was some kind of narcotic everyone was addicted to.

18

White Plague The White Plague
by Frank Herbert A genetically engineered virus that kills only Irish and Libyan women.

from List of fictional diseases - Wikipedia

this one is wrong, the white plague killed women period, nearly killed them all as well. the original targets were the Irish (and possibly Libyan as well) been a while since I read the book.

19

On Torchwood they have a mind-erasing drug called Retcon, which does come back to bite them a few times.

20

I can’t believe you have all forgotten: The Andromeda Strain.

Various comics jump to mind: the Super-Soldier Serum (Captain America), Miraclo (Hourman), Gingold Serum (The Elongated Man).