[hexnuts]

I forget what sci fi story explored this, but society bifurcated into two branches of augments. One was what I'll call the "apple" crowd. You could get "boring" upgrades like a Inspector Gadget style hand. Or you could go black market and get cutting edge stuff that could and likely would cause you massive damage. But the drawbacks were outweighed by the advantages you could gain. So the tech companies sort of had clandestine observation reports to accelerate their own research.

[matsz]

Tangentially, I wonder how much of the research chemical ("legal highs") market is just companies releasing things to gather data for compounds that could be then commercialized.

[wyre]

This is a fun thing to think about, but commercialization of drugs is antagonistic towards the drugs working around the drug enforcement agencies that technically provide legal highs.

Cannabis is the closest thing that’s combining the two. MDMA is possible, but I can imagine can be synthesized to remove the euphoria once there has been more testing. Mushrooms, LSD, and Ketamine all show their maximum effectuation at lower doses would be taken recreationally.