Government Drug Enforcement/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A government forces its people to take some kind of drug.
  • Played Straight: The People's Republic of Tyranny forces people to take Happy Pills, perhaps by putting them in the drinking water.
  • Exaggerated: The Happy Pills are dispensed by professional "health care workers" who do whatever it takes to make sure the citizens get their daily dose. Those who refuse to take them are killed.
  • Downplayed: The government strongly urges its people to take vitamins.
  • Inverted: The government has banned Happy Pills and severely punishes those who sell them, buy them, possess them, or actually use them.
  • Justified:
    • Happy Pills are an important source of nutrients, and the government wants to protect its people's health.
    • Happy Pills keep everyone too mellow to notice or care about the grave injustices in society.
    • Happy Pills have some effect desirable to society, such as increasing or decreasing fertility.
    • There is no separation of church and state in this setting, and Happy Pills are an integral part of the national religion.
    • The pills are actually a cure to an otherwise crippling disease. The only real reason for enforcement is because the effects are so ghastly that if the disease takes full effect in public then everybody will be nauseous just by looking at it.
    • The pills prevent a mental breakdown do to a chemical in the air or water by negating the problem substance. The mental breakdowns are, if not downright lethal, capable of making one a threat to those around them. They would be able to stop taking them once the air or water gets purified.
    • The pills are actually sugar pills, the enforcement is meant to enhance the pleciblo effect on people. This also has the merit of putting some trust in the government, as if people found out then they were doing no real harm.
  • Subverted: Although the government pays for them, and encourages their use, Happy Pills are taken on a strictly voluntary basis.
  • Double Subverted: But commercials for them are always on TV and radio, and the government gives money or other incentives to people who agree to take the Happy Pills.
  • Deconstructed: Leads to a lot of people being too strung out on God-knows-what to function at their best. Also, there could be undesirable side-effects.
  • Reconstructed:
    • Happy Pills are manufactured to the highest standards, so that they are 100% safe and healthy, and they don't impair normal day-to-day function or reasoning or creativity. But taking them is still mandatory.
    • Happy Pills make efficient workers.
  • Parodied: Although given to prevent a revolution, the Happy Pills are the cause of the revolution. Not because people are angered at being given mind-control drugs, but because everyone is doing the Mushroom Samba and sees the dictator as a scary talking plant.
  • Lampshaded: "There must be something in the water..."
  • Averted: The government does not force people to take any kind of drug.
  • Enforced: Utopia Justifies the Means, Dystopia
  • Invoked: A dictator comes to power, and worries that people will rebel against him, so he laces the water with Happy Pills.
  • Defied: He knows that Happy Pills in the water would lead to lots of car crashes and chaos, so he doesn't do it.
  • Discussed: "Does this water taste funny to you?"
  • Conversed: "I wish I lived there."
  • Played For Laughs: Alice turns on the tap and experiences a Disney Acid Sequence, and the government is shown to be responsible.
  • Played For Drama: Happy Pills are being used to prevent a revolution.

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