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.
Source :- http://worldtoptenthings.blogspot.in/2011/12/top-10-legal-addictions.html
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