It really would depend on a few things, I guess. How a country would react, if this drug was known about by the masses, what it does to a woman's fertility (limited amount of eggs, after all), what it changes in a person's metabolism, just how expensive (and hence selective) the drug would be, if the nation would move to nationalize it under their control (wait, "if?"
I kind of disagree with Bart, I don't think any country would let it be a market thing from the get-go) and so forth.
If it's publicly known, I doubt you would ever see a real elite form. People would notice if someone started living super long, people would be strongly concerned about the potential existence of folks able to live for long periods of time. There would be extraordinary amounts of pressure placed to maintain blocks on something which cannot be used by the masses, and I guess my biggest fear is that people would get a little hysterical about people wandering around with an anti-aging solution in their blood, and society takes a turn to being more hard-line on such substances regardless of where people work, etc.
Since it's expensive, I doubt you'd see wide spread dissemination of it, even in nations with strong socialist backbones. A limited subgroup inside any country carries a much greater risk than a group with less rights in another country. People in India are not pissed off at Canadians for having a higher GNP, but they are pissed off at intrusive language and cultural problems internally. People who perceive the creation of an actual, biological, definable class of humans who can receive a long-running treatment domestically would more likely form a taboo for going against the norm. While perhaps a handful of people could get away with it, I doubt many would, and any known ones would be harshly viewed in the public eye, somewhat like our current celebrities are. I have no doubt that people who are known to use it would quickly lose their wealth as support for them fell away over time for the most part.
I have to admit that I am somewhat optimistic that with an expensive drug that would be one of the worst things that you would see. History has had it's share of extraordinarily smart men who have been ringing the bells of doom, from Malthus and his overpopulation theorem to Marx. Even though we now see that their ideas did not hold water in some cases (even though these, as I mentioned before, were quite intelligent folks), we know why they do not hold water. In Malthus' case, he failed to notice that technological progress is an ongoing phenomenon, and to this day we see the effects of technological progress in how American factory workers continue to be competitive on an international scale. I would not be surprised to see a shift in society to offset potential negatives of this production.
In addition, because this is a short term drug, there is always the possibility that it would be used on or for "assets" to society. I remember an old Star Trek episode I hate to reference where a society allocated some amount of drugs which slowed the aging process to people who's jobs were important -- irrigation engineers who serviced hundreds of thousands, leading engineers on important projects, what have you. If there is a case where I'd think people may grudgingly accept the use of this drug with what I could describe as socially segregating properties, it would be in a case where it could potentially be good for humanity. Since the expense would no doubt make the supply limited, I would not be surprised if this sort of limit would actually make it an effective method as such. I already see in my head, the NDP claiming the future Liberals misused the drugs on the wrong people -- it would fit wonderfully into the Canadian political scene! Imagine the potential outrage at allegations of a politician using the drug on themselves.
I guess what also would be interesting is what would happen in cases of dictatorships. If there's one effective method of change, it's when the old ruler passes away and someone takes their place. Could you imagine a Kim with a replacement population every few decades, or an African warlord who only has to stay away from gunfire to ensure his reign? If there's one friendly thing about the lack of this drug is that it does force humanity to adapt to new conditions at eventually get rid of some of the worst examples of humanity the oldest fashioned way possible. I'd hate for that guy from the Westboro Church to have his family pool their resources to keep their crazed leader alive, or for any other fundamentalist or personality cultist to get their hands on it for their glorious leader.
So I guess my two biggest fears are potential paranoia causing internal troubles (McCarthyism, only with drugs as the target) or that some horrible examples of humanity would manage to live long past when their poisonous rhetoric should have died, rotted, and faded into blissful oblivion with them, requiring more active resistance from other parties or the downtrodden beneath them.
On the other hand, could you imagine the incentives and the possibilities of giving some people the ability to research for double as long? For someone leading long-term Canadian projects to actually lead long term Canadian projects? For their to be incentives in the system to encourage excellence? Like Bart, I do have a somewhat positive outlook -- although some folks are talking about if everyone could get it, rather than a small grouping, so I don't know if this is what you are looking for.
Plus, we have to keep in mind that people are constantly changing. Who I am is somewhat different than who I was even six months back, let alone six years. There is no guarantee that a Khar at 50 would be anything similar to a Khar at 100, 250, 500 or 1000 -- indeed, by then the person known as Khar might be an entirely different personal altogether. We are far from a static race, and each of us individually is hardly static as well. Humans are shockingly capable of adapting and getting used to new situations, thinking we would remain the same especially after the shock of not aging seems a little off to me as well. It's always funny that in those vampire books without the sparkles the ever dead vampires are broody and dark, and wouldn't you be, regardless of your personality when living, after hundreds of years of living in the dark, plotting, sucking blood and having living loves pass in an ever shorter period of time? I also don't think that people would go insane with the passing of time either -- while time might seem shorter looking back, the passing of time is only so fast either way, and I feel eventually how fast it felt time was passing would plateau. Our brains keep track of our heartbeat, we get hungry, we breath, we sleep, our rhythms keep our time going -- I don't think that would all be lost with an aging drug, and with it our sanity (which seems to be a leading argument these days).
One genre this does remind me of outside of your atypical aforementioned non-sparkly Vampire novel is steampunk, where we have advanced to a point where we are able to integrate more technology in our lives and how it impacts society. Interestingly enough, a lot of the situations involve people working hard to upgrade their bodies in some way or to live longer (although I find the trend of evil megacorps in those books monotonous and irritatingly common in the genre).
Erm, sorry for the length of this post, Zip! Good luck with your novel!
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