In
the Eighties, Nancy Reagan led a militant campaign to do away with
drugs, from the backs of schoolyards to the cartels of Columbia.
However, when her husband ultimately succumbed to Alzheimer’s, you
didn’t see her telling him to “just say NO” to his medication. There’s a
clear double-standard on how drugs are handled in this country, but
there seems to be one unifying principle: if they government can somehow
make a profit, it’s a-okay as far as the law goes. Nonetheless,
substance abuse and addiction rages at full force on both sides of the
law, and feigning an injury is a much less risky way to acquire an
opiate than to cross the border and smuggle a plastic-wrapped portion of
suspicious black goop. Addiction is good business for all involved.
Compulsive
shopping is a disorder, and one that can keep the economy churning,
that is if the afflicted member is a responsible credit card owner. More
often than not however, a frequent credit card swiper will live in
bottomless debt with nothing but a household of canoes and flatscreen
T.V.’s to show for it. Of course the government would encourage spending
at inadvisable times if it means economic stimulation (and of course
sales tax revenue), but the compulsive shopper needs more counseling
than trips to the mall to right this wrong.
9. T.V.
Visual
stimulation can be just as addictive as any other kind. Cut off a
shut-in’s cable subscription and watch how quickly a sweet,
slightly-sedated old lady can become a common junkie suffering from
violent withdrawal symptoms and uncontrollable behavior. Television is
an endless stream of unilateral entertainment that simulates a
fulfilling life one may be missing out on due to being terminally
wheelchair-confined, or else just cut off from a greater society. Just
pay the monthly bill and the loneliness can be neatly stuffed into a
little old coin purse.
8. MMORPGs ( Massively multiplayer online role-playing games )
How
can a game consisting of orcs, wizards, and other medieval cliches
consume so many souls and hours of sunlight? Unfathomable as it sounds,
millions maintain a subscription to a network-based video game and treat
it as a second life, one which they clock in more hours than in the
actual world. Eat, sleep, energy drink, game: that is the complete life
of many who’ve yet to leave their parents’ basement or pursue a real
life of work that doesn’t involve trading furs or blacksmithing. And
about the addictive nature of games like World of Warcraft, just see the
video on Youtube of the kid that has a veritable stigmata over his mom
taking away his WOW account. Scary stuff.
7. Celebrity Gossip
Because
people care (I.e. Obsess) about the lives of the beautiful and famous;
tabloids, TMZ, and trashcan journalism exists. For some, enough to make a
handsome profit, it’s not enough to watch a movie and leave the stars
onscreen. No, they need to see these people hunted down and in intimate,
compromising settings that would be grounds for an assault charge in
any other circumstance – an invasion of privacy that nobody deserves.
Sure reality stars present a kind of voyeurism in their professions that
makes privacy invasion a given, but for any artist who create their
work in isolated, public arenas and seek not to take their work home
with them, there becomes a fine line between celebrity reporter and
peeping tom.
6. Fast Food
Greasy,
fattening food is cheap and ubiquitous. Literally, it can be acquired
24/7 and at every intersection, and purchased by the bucket for less
than whats in your typical consumer’s belly button. Obesity is easy; in
fact, it’s hard to avoid when healthy food costs more than the average
consumer can afford with his weekly paycheck. Fast food is made cheap
(often with artificial substitutes), hence it can be sold cheap and is a
sad sap’s last option. When it tastes so much better than it benefits,
it is again a huge draw. McDonald’s brags right on its golden arches how
many billion burgers it’s sold, but it is not by any pure means: for
one, McDonald’s loads their food with chemicals that simulate happiness,
their hamburger buns with sugar, which is another petty alternative to
just making good food alone. Only recently have the chicken nuggets
started to be made with the frighteningly white meat of actual chicken, a
step up from sickly colored ostrich meat. So as many struggle and fail
to convert to a healthier diet, they “put a smile on” only because the
milkshakes are loaded with too many chemicals to do otherwise.
5. Gambling
Be
it at a casino in a tolerant state or Indian reservation or behind the
counter of any convenience store sales counter in scratch form, risking
all your earnings for a poor chance at modest luck is a great way to
grease up a business’ fat gut. Many seeking a magical and immediate
escape from an under-educated life of manual labor and alcohol poisoning
flock to pick up their daily lotto ticket or place their “lucky”
numbers as if a million to one isn’t so far-fetched. And no business
should be trusted that purposefully eschews visible windows and clocks
in order to hide the passage of time. Lo and behold, any state with
loose casino laws automatically resembles the inside of Donald Trump’s
gentleman’s drawer.
4. Pornography
It’s
lure. It’s tasteless. And it’s a goldmine. Just ask Hugh Hefner or
Larry Flynt or any infinite-aire that shovels gold from the sex
industry. Nothing sells like sex, which is why it is so often
introduced, if subliminally, to any cheap-shooting marketing campaign.
Directly though, sex in a bottle always finds a customer-base. Nothing
breeds desire like nature. Porn is available at the click of a mouse and
on a special shelf (in opaque packaging) at most magazine venders.
That’s not to mention seedy stores with conspicuous names like “Adult
Mart” or “Pleasure Island” which make like X-rated Wal-Marts. No
Christian activist stands a chance at taking down this invincible
Goliath.
3. Alcohol
Legal
steadily since the twenties, when the government had the crazy idea to
ban this braincell-shedding national pastime and deny itself unruly
profits, booze is as potentially dangerous as it is ubiquitous. At any
public setting (even Starbucks is getting in on the rocket), alcohol is
usually available for purchase and without much restraint so much as the
register keeps chiming (and as long as a designated vehicular man-saver
is selected). While it seems unfair that its proven hazards outweigh
those of marijuana and still maintains the legal status the plant does
not, we won’t soon have a profitable poison at quite the summit which
liquor has found itself. Budweiser will be forever both the king of
beers and the king of the drug hill.
2. Cigarettes
Unarguably
a direct contributor to a smorgasbord of death options, the government
has done nothing to do away with this consumable poison; while there may
be myriad agencies dedicated the public safety of any other ingestible
product, there is nothing deterring a cylinder of carcinogens from
entering countless lungs each day, each hour. The only dissembling
action the government has taken is to drive up the tax on the the stuff
to levels that should prevent affordability for most costumers. Of
course any addict will find a way to acquire the goods, scrape together
every coin from beneath the couch cushions. In actuality smokers will
just be perpetually bitter about the continually rising prices, doing
little about it besides lighting up a butt. A perfect circle of death
and taxes.
1. Prescription Drugs
This
is the most sinister of all the addiction-caterers in that you’re not
even safe from your own doctor. Most every doctor will find a way to
peddle a pharmaceutical drug to a person with some kind of condition,
real or imaginary; it makes their job easier and feeds the business
(i.e. the healthcare industry) that cuts them a check to be a
drug-dealer in disguise. Most prescription drugs, after all, are just
synthetic alternates to what unrefined, impure substances flow through
the streets without requiring an RX slip. (Oxycontin is content-wise no
different from heroine and consequently is just as addictive, abused as
the poppy-based original.) And with new disorders, diseases, and
conditions fabricated on a daily basis, there will always be a demand to
meet the raid-proof supply.
