Innovation sometimes creates a need by creating a product that no one ever knew they needed. Take Steve Jobs.. Who ever believed that any of us needed a iPod, iPad, or iPhone.
Some of us have trouble determining the difference between needs and wants. Perhaps this is the underlying cause of many who are over their heads in debt.
Excessive wants can lead to some form of addiction. Tobacco products contain what is suppose to be the most addictive substance – nicotine .. Yet it is freely available… And tobacco use kills 450k annually. Alcohol use/abuse only kills 145k annually and unlike tobacco .. Driving drunk can kill innocent people as well.. Yet, it too, is freely available.
As a society we seem obsessed with a relative small number of people that die from abusing opiates and other substances.
There is obviously a sizable demand for opiates.. People kill each other over it and controlling the distribution on ” the street” over it. They forge prescriptions to get it..
This is not just a problem in this country… So it would appear that it is a physical/mental flaw in a certain per-cent of us homospaiens.
Stats would suggest that for ever one person that is abusing a opiate, there are 19 that have a legit medical need. Yet focusing on the ones that abuse we are preventing those with legit medical needs from getting adequate therapy..
As a society, we are against ” aggressive interrogation techniques ” on those people who would kill innocent people …but we have no problem with letting chronic pain patients suffer in pain because we cling to our Puritanical beliefs … That abusing opiates is wrong.
There are groups – Mexican cartel – that are going to fullfil the “needs/wants” of this market. We have been fighting this war since the Harrison narcotic act of 1914… What has changed ?
We let “bad guys” determine what is to be sold, the price, where it is to be sold, the quality and quantity available…
And all the money is UNTAXED… And the cost of the health consequences ..is borne by our society.. Not to mention the billions and billions of dollars that is being spent fighting this war we have not been able to even begin to win in 100 years.
Filed under: General dumb-ass problems
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