IronSugar - Combination?

[Rohesie]

I've seen this little debate sprout more than once. As both medic and doctor I'm on the firm opinion that pills containing iron and sugar are not combination and can thus be distributed to medics without breaching marine law.

The logic is that while iron can be classified as a medication (and a dangerous one, since it doesn't appear in the scanners but it does OD at 30u), sugar cannot.

Arguments in favor of sugar being a medication:
[*] Is dispensed by the chemistry machine. But then again, so can water.
[*] Can be put into pills. But then again, so can food (nutriment), water, coffee, Souto, or for that matter any drinks.

Arguments against:
[*] Has no OD.
[*] Merely fills hunger.
[*] It's sugar, damn it! If you are being given a sugar pill you are being given placebo or candy.

Thoughts?

[Surrealistik]

Sugar is a waste of chem charge; Iron is I believe at least 3 times as efficient at restoring blood and costs the same amount of charge.

Yes, Iron and Sugar stack, but generally the slight reduction in recovery time/increment in blood recovery speed (you recover much more total blood with an equivalent amount of pure iron) is not worth the Oxycodone/Dermaline/Dexplus/Imidazoline/Alkysine/Iron/etc you could be producing with the charge wasted on Sugar; the opportunity costs are real.

[Rohesie]

Sugar doesn't recover blood directly. It recovers nutrition, which recovers blood. And after you've spent a bit of time hurt or without a full blood level you get hungry. Which makes you slower and less combat effective. Sugar solves that issue as well.

Medics have limited space for what they can carry, and you'll rarely run out of power if all you are doing is supplying for them without wasting tons of chems for no reasons. As for your own meds, you have a lot of time while the marines prep and deploy.

Lastly, iron OD is at 30. Pills can have up to 60 units in them. There is no need to remove iron to place sugar, can just add it as frosting. And the pills are now yummy!

[Surrealistik]

Sugar doesn't recover blood directly. It recovers nutrition, which recovers blood. And after you've spent a bit of time hurt or without a full blood level you get hungry. Which makes you slower and less combat effective. Sugar solves that issue as well.

Medics have limited space for what they can carry, and you'll rarely run out of power if all you are doing is supplying for them without wasting tons of chems for no reasons. As for your own meds, you have a lot of time while the marines prep and deploy.

Lastly, iron OD is at 30. Pills can have up to 60 units in them. There is no need to remove iron to place sugar, can just add it as frosting. And the pills are now yummy!

Yes, but MREs are plentiful as food goes, along with planetside vendors, and though chem charge is plentiful it is still finite and you have better things to do than waste it on sugar, such as mass Oxy. Meanwhile, 30U Iron is more than enough to recover all but the most severe bloodloss. The benefits of sugar overall are outweighed by the opportunity costs in the case of a diligent chemist.

[Rohesie]

snip

Not every medic wants oxy, I know I wouldn't. And I don't think energy is that scarce that you cannot make IronSugar. I know I as a doctor never run out of juice and manage to get all requests unless if they ask me right after briefing and they expect it to happen before the DS leaves. And I enjoy doing big-sized pills.

While I could also say that food is not that plentiful on every map, that's kind of not the point of the thread. Some medics want oxy and dex plus, I don't really feel them that important for my style. But what I really want to know is what you think about the interpretation of the combination law on this case.

[Surrealistik]

Not every medic wants oxy, I know I wouldn't. And I don't think energy is that scarce that you cannot make IronSugar. I know I as a doctor never run out of juice and manage to get all requests unless if they ask me right after briefing and they expect it to happen before the DS leaves. And I enjoy doing big-sized pills.

While I could also say that food is not that plentiful on every map, that's kind of not the point of the thread. Some medics want oxy and dex plus, I don't really feel them that important for my style. But what I really want to know is what you think about the interpretation of the combination law on this case.

It's illegal period per the rules as they are written; RP wise you might be able to get away with it, but as a combination it is technically illegal.

Also Oxy is the best combat drug in the game at the moment (at least outside of a combination), and 20U doses are superb (and expensive to produce); making it and max dose pills of the staples (Dermaline/Dex+/Iron) will plow through your chem charge post-haste if done efficiently, even with the use of restocked chems to help minimize the cost.

[Rohesie]

It's illegal period per the rules as they are written; RP wise you might be able to get away with it, but as a combination it is technically illegal.

Aha, care to elaborate? Marine law forbids more than one medication per pill bottle. Not substances, not chemicals. Medication. You'd interpret sugar as a medication?

Also Oxy is the best combat drug in the game at the moment (at least outside of a combination), and 20U doses are superb (and expensive to produce); making it and max dose pills of the staples (Dermaline/Dex+/Iron) will plow through your chem charge post-haste if done efficiently, even with the use of restocked chems to help minimize the cost.

Last shift I played as CMO I had only two chem requests: one for Dex Plus, one for Dermaline. Sure, if you have to attend to all those requests sugar may not be your priority, but it's not always the case.

[Surrealistik]

Aha, care to elaborate? Marine law forbids more than one medication per pill bottle. Not substances, not chemicals. Medication. You'd interpret sugar as a medication?

med·i·ca·tion
ˌmedəˈkāSH(ə)n/Submit
noun
a substance used for medical treatment, especially a medicine or drug.

I think an anal retentive MP can definitely get you for this because it's a substance used for medical treatment (treatment of bloodloss) technically.

Last shift I played as CMO I had only two chem requests: one for Dex Plus, one for Dermaline. Sure, if you have to attend to all those requests sugar may not be your priority, but it's not always the case.

In the case of Oxy, I suspect it's because they never think to ask for it because few chemists ever bother to make it (probably since it's relatively cumbersome to mass produce).

[Rohesie]

med·i·ca·tion
ˌmedəˈkāSH(ə)n/Submit
noun
a substance used for medical treatment, especially a medicine or drug.

I think an anal retentive MP can definitely get you for this because it's a substance used for medical treatment (treatment of bloodloss) technically.

"Any personnel not licensed who distribute medication for consumption or administer medication are considered practicing without a license."

So the distribution of food and drinks would be classified as Practicing Medicine without a License?

[Surrealistik]

"Any personnel not licensed who distribute medication for consumption or administer medication are considered practicing without a license."

So the distribution of food and drinks would be classified as Practicing Medicine without a License?

In a pill form distributed to medics by doctors, ironsugar is pretty clearly intended to act as a medical treatment for bloodloss, and it is a substance; the context/form also matters.

You can dispute it, but an MP has enough to arrest you on. Not worth the headache when sugar only offers marginal additional benefits in the first place, and isn't even really worth the charge.

[Varen]

Okay, if we want to be real anal about this. You are already adding something outside the active-element to make the pill in the first place.
Technically speaking, it's iron-and-<whatevertheyusetobindthepill>, etcetera. So if you interpret sugar-iron as combination, sugar being one a common binding for pills, you are saying all pills are combination-meds.

[WinterClould]

OOCly it's clearly a mix. You're putting two chems together and making it into a pill. That counts as enough

ICly It would be dumb to call it a combo since its fucking sugar and iron two basic things that are not drugs. More vitamins and shit.

Who really cares though. Like Sur said, just use only iron, sugar is kinda pointless.

[Mann handle]

There really is no point to sugar in a blood loss pill when Iron alone can cover most of the damage. If you want to deal with the nutriment loss, you have a helmet that can store protein bars for a reason.

As for the law surrounding combo medication. It's poorly written out but you really can't argue against it when you see certain CMPs or MPs roaming around, they will ask what you are distributing and they will want to check. Either you learn how to lie well, smuggle shit out in a sneaky fashion or you avoid the brig by taking the safe route by avoiding combo chems. It sucks but the law is the law.

[Madventurer]

Holy fucking shit this is a common sense question.

In my books, the first rule of playing spacemen is to ask, does it make sense?
Ask that yourself now.

[Rohesie]

Holy fucking shit this is a common sense question.

In my books, the first rule of playing spacemen is to ask, does it make sense?
Ask that yourself now.

Some things make sense for some people and not for others. Welcome to diversity.

Both options make sense depending on the point of view. That's the effect ambiguous rules.

[Surrealistik]

Holy fucking shit this is a common sense question.

In my books, the first rule of playing spacemen is to ask, does it make sense?
Ask that yourself now.

MPs have less than zero regard for common sense on average, and can technically arrest for ironsugar pill distribution, so they will.

That said they're doing god's work in this case because it's a waste of chem charge which is the real crime here.