Smokeleaf joint

Smokeleaf joints are social drugs that are relatively safe to use, easy to produce, and provide a moderately potent mood and recreation buff, balanced by some drawbacks. Care should be taken however, as the consciousness debuff its high inflicts can cause death in pawns with already lowered consciousness.

Smokeleaf joint will deteriorate with the usual conditions...

Acquisition

Smokeleaf joints can be cooked at a Crafting spot or Drug lab. No research is required to craft smokeleaf joints. Each joint requires 4 Smokeleaf leaves and 450 ticks (7.5 secs) of work, although the ingame UI claims that it takes only 30 work to make. Its cooking speed is dependent on the [[Skills#|]] skill. Despite being [[Skills#|]]-based, the Crafting work-type must be enabled in the Work menu in order to perform this activity.

It can also be found on raiders and purchased.

Summary

Smokeleaf is a moderately potent mood enhancing social drug that has a variety of effects. These can be broken into effects that occur:

Instantaneously and one time upon using the drug.
While high on the drug.
While having a built-up tolerance to the drug.
While addicted to the drug.
While withdrawing from the drug.

Upon smoking

A pawn smoking a smokeleaf joint will look for a place to sit first, but is still able to smoke without one. Smokeleaf joints are smoked, taking 720 ticks (12 secs). It has the following one time effects:

+80% Chemical recreation
−10% Rest
+12.5% to +50% Stoned on smokeleaf severity, depending on tolerance (see "Stoned on smokeleaf" below)
+3% Tolerance severity, divided by body size (see "Tolerance" below)
If the pawn has 15% tolerance already:
- 4.4% to 30% Addiction chance (see "Addiction" below)
If the pawn has an addiction already:
- +90% Smokeleaf need (see "Addiction" below)
- −6% Addiction progress (see "Addiction" below)

Stoned on smokeleaf

"Smokeleaf's active chemical in the bloodstream. Generates a soft feeling of fuzzy well-being."
— Stoned on smokeleaf description

Each joint smoked increases the stoned on smokeleaf severity by the following formula:

Increase in severity = 0.5 * (100 - (tolerance * 75 round 0))

Therefore with 0% tolerance the severity increases by 50%, with 100% tolerance by 12.5%. It decreases by 100% per day again, meaning that the high of a single dose lasts between 3 and 12 hours. The maximum severity of a smokeleaf high is 100% which is reached with 2 to 8 joints. Regardless of the smokeleaf high severity, the effects are always the same. Only their duration changes accordingly:

+13 Mood ("I'm, like, stoned, man.")
−30% Consciousness (WARNING: If a pawns consciousness drops to 0% they die.)
−10% Moving
+30% Hunger rate factor offset. (Note: The offsets to the factor are additive with each other, while the factor itself is multiplicative with the hunger rate.)
−20% Pain

Tolerance

Main article: Tolerance

"A built-up tolerance to smokeleaf. The more severe this tolerance is, the more smokeleaf it takes to get the same effect."
— Tolerance description

Each smokeleaf joint consumed increases the tolerance of the pawn by 3%, divided by the body size of the pawn. Thus smaller or not fully grown pawns gain more tolerance per drug use then bigger or fully grown ones. A Human has a body size of 1. Tolerance decreases at a rate of 1.5% per day.

See sections "Stoned on smokeleaf" and "Addiction" for how tolerance affects stoned on smokeleaf severity and addiction chance respectively.

If the tolerance is above a certain thresholds it imposes a chance over time to gain the following ailments:

Carcinoma
Tolerance above 36% imposes a chance to get carcinoma proportional to the tolerance held. Carcinoma gained this way will affect only lungs and only one lung at a time.

Tolerance Average carcinoma interval Graph

36% 99999 Days

40% 180 Days

100% 135 Days
Asthma
Tolerance above 45% imposes a chance to get asthma proportional to the tolerance held. Asthma gained this way will affect both lungs.

Tolerance Average asthma interval Graph

45% 99999 Days

50% 180 Days

100% 135 Days

Addiction

"A chemical addiction to smokeleaf. Long-term use of smokeleaf has caused neurological adaptations at the cellular level, so the brain can no longer function properly without the drug. Without regular doses of smokeleaf, withdrawal symptoms will begin. However, extended abstinence will force the brain to adapt back to its normal state, resolving the addiction."
— Addiction description

Once a pawn has a tolerance of 15% or above, each dose carries a chance of addiction that scales with tolerance. Due to the minimum tolerance to addict, smokeleaf joints can be safely consumed once every 2 days without risking addiction, so long as the pawn has a body size of 1 or higher and their tolerance is not already elevated before starting the schedule.

The chance of addiction is as follows:

Tolerance	Addiction chance	Graph
0%	0%
15%	4.4%
50%	10%
80%	30%

The addiction progresses by 3.33% per day from the initial 50%. Once it reaches 100% the addiction is healed, meaning it takes about 15 days to overcome the addiction. Consuming smokeleaf during an addiction will reduce the addiction progress by 6% again (see "Upon smoking" above).

Developing an addiction means a pawn has a smokeleaf need. The need for smokeleaf falls by 50% per day, consuming smokeleaf satisfies the need by 90% (see "Upon smoking" above), meaning the pawn will need to consume smokeleaf at least every 1.8 days to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal

"Because of a smokeleaf dependence, this person needs to regularly consume the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms."
— Need description

As soon as the smokeleaf need reaches 0% the pawn suffers from the following withdrawal symptoms:

−20 Mood ("I really wish I could smoke. I feel jittery, and my gut has that anxious sensation all the time.")
−20% Consciousness (WARNING: If a pawns consciousness drops to 0% they die.)
−15% Moving
Mental break chances:
- Food binge: on average every 30 days. This averages to 1 food binge during each withdrawal.
- Hard drug binge: on average every 50 days. This averages to 0.6 hard drug binges during each withdrawal.

Analysis

This is a relatively easy to acquire drug with moderate mood boosting and Recreation effects, but the high has significant penalties to Pawn Capacities, such as decreased Consciousness and Moving. As such, it is advisable to change your colonists' drug policy setting from the default of free recreational use.

As a social drug, consumption is relatively safe compared to hard drugs; one smokeleaf joint every 2 days will not cause dependency. If smoked more often and the smokeleaf tolerance reaches 15% or more, then consumption has a 2% chance to create addiction. Those with visible tolerance will develop asthma or carcinoma in the lungs in a mean time of 180 days.

Despite a +13 mood boost and its relative safety, smokeleaf is not suitable for regular mood management due to its severe Consciousness penalty of 30%. Consciousness directly impacts Moving and Manipulation, and Manipulation in turn heavily impacts a very large number of critical pawn stats and most production speeds.

The default drug policy for new colonists is set to "Social drugs", which, also by default, has smokeleaf set to "For recreation", meaning colonists are allowed to smoke a joint whenever they feel like it for joy and social purposes. Due to the risks and the loss of productivity caused by smokeleaf highs, it is advisable to change this policy so joints are only used when needed to prevent mental breaks.