Louis R wrote:Unlikely to be the same, unless you want to posit an activity almost opposite what it does in humans. Which is certainly not impossible but would definitely require knowledge of treecat pharmacology well beyond "well, it does this with people, so of course it will with 'cats" - that's actually all we have evidence for so far.
Which mirrors my post upstream about Young being too callous and arrogant to research such specific information, which could have possibly made other sources privy to his culpability if it went south and was ever investigated.
Jonathan_S wrote:cthia wrote:Sorry saber, I overlooked this post where you pegged my logic that Nimitz may not have gotten the full dosage, because he is a slow methodical consumer of celery one strand at a time.
I knew he was a pervert! Which makes me think he keeps a ready supply of date rape drugs. Young is a case for Freud to bask in as well. His type is found on Law and Order: SVU. Young can't get it up unless he rapes or degrades a woman. Georgia mentions the sadistic side of him as well, he was a creep in bed. It was obvious that without it, Young's sexual prowess was as impotent as his uniform.
Again, unless this happens to be a different drug of the same name this was not a date rape drug that he used on Nimitz. Cotinine is a byproduct of nicotine.
It would be useless to help Young rape, or date rape, women -- so while its certainly not completely out of character for him to have had human date rape drugs on hand that not what he used here and we can't use what he drugged Nimitz with as evidence one way or the other of also stocking different drugs for different purposes.
Certainly sane points both of you. We just don't know. Highly speculative on our part, except of course that it certainly could have been fatal to Nimitz. It is certainly one to consider and roll around the roof of your brain. Here is the problem I have with it.
1) I'm not completely convinced that it is the same drug, besides your spelling it differently, which could just be a spelling error, I'd like to hear it from RFC.
2) Young's date rape personality and history is far too much too understeer. It certainly isn't out of his character as you've acknowledged. But admittedly it could just be an astonishing coincidence. I don't like coincidences, and absolutely abhor astonishing ones. Bracketing that argument for sake of conversation, let's assume that the two drugs are the same...
3)
Same wiki article wrote: Cotinine treatment has also been shown to reduce depression, anxiety, and fear-related behavior as well as memory impairment in animal models of depression, PTSD, and Alzheimer's disease. Nonetheless, treatment with cotinine in humans was reported to have no significant physiologic, subjective, or performance effects in one study, though others suggest that this may not be the case.
Because cotinine is the main metabolite to nicotine and has been shown to be pharmacologically active, it has been suggested that some of nicotine's effects in the nervous system may be mediated by cotinine and/or complex interactions with nicotine itself
I am certain that it is universally not the case. I would wager that the study uses a base of regular smokers, those who are desensitised to nicotine and its byproducts. The other half of the study (data) that suggests that there
may be physiological effects I assume would hail from the populous who do not routinely ingest nicotine -- i.e., are not smokers. (All speculation on my part.) And trust me, having been on the receiving end of a nicotine poisoning, I can assure you it is a copper-plated Cordelia Ransom (why I don't smoke). (Although symptomatic of the nicotine itself.) Admittedly, that may make me an accomplice to nitpicking. May. However...
4) Anything can be considered a date rape drug if it accomplishes the mission of leaving the victim helpless, incapacitated and lying in the supine—or prone to be politically LGBT correct—position. Hell, alcohol can be considered a date rape drug.
5) Also, cotinine under study is introduced in controlled doses. If used as a date rape drug--or to incapacitate (effectively the same)--the doses would be significantly higher. And without natural nicotine in the system to "burn" the cotinine I would suspect that the effect would be "date rape-able." Veritable Cat on a platter. Especially in light of the fact that in the Honorverse, exposure to nicotine and by relation cotinine isn't a common thing where a tolerance is built up.
I asked one of my sisters, M.D., about drugs that are more harmful to pets than humans. "Are you kidding, almost everything we take is dangerously toxic to pets." So, that theory is sound. Although, they are dangerous to humans as well in fatal doses and in conjunction with other drugs and especially alcohol. Here is a site she suggested,
here Which was an eye-opener for me. I asked her about cotinine and got a fricking thesis. "Can you water it down?" "That was with water."
6) If I didn't misunderstand Louis' post, it mirrors what I was thinking. If it was not a date rape drug, then it would not have been a guarantee to incapacitate Nimitz. It had to be a drug that would definitely achieve the desired result, and cotinine, unless specific research is available to the contrary in the case of the cats, does not.
7) Too neat a package for the likes of Pavel Young to achieve considering that his arrogance, birth and the North Hollow files made him feel invincible.
Admittedly, w/o RFC's input could just be a cat barking up the wrong tree.
