FTFY <3
The whole point of my post was its silly how we try to stigmatize 'hard' drugs based on their proposed effects on society, invoking either public health or the crime use/trafficking of the drug, plus, you know, how fair the US legal system is when it comes to racial parity.
Then there's this
But why do people do drugs? Why do people in America get so fat?
Economic immobility and american exceptionalism.
See, nobody's good enough. The Joneses are better than you. Always have been. Our society is not a positive one. We've been taught that failures get tossed aside, that winners get ahead because they work harder, and that 'freedom' means everyone's an island unto themselves.
America's drug problem and eating problems are a direct result of America's image problem. There are a whole lot of folks with nothing better to do. Dying of methamphetamine or heroin or alcohol or food abuse is better than having to deal with rural life. Or urban life. Or life in general.
Drugs and Food release dopamine. Dopamine makes you feel good.
People, Americans in particular, will become addicted to feeling good. Why? Because we're miserable.
Some folks are more responsible for their addictions than others, but we're all responsible for a society that marginalizes people towards drug addiction. Seclusion really. I don't see much difference between the lady who puts down 5000 calories from her couch, the dude bangin' heroin under a bridge, or the kid who spends after school and most weekends on his computer.
They're all trying to escape, and they cant, so they placate the existence they feel forced into with substances.
See, with capitalism, solutions to anyone's problems can be purchased. That's the American way: nothing's impossible when there's money to be made.
It's why the punishment industry was privatized. It's why mental care is so hard to access and afford for folks who need it. The human condition is second to profit.
Look at gas stations - there's your ultimate vice peddler right there. Bigger drug dealer in America. What do gas stations/'convenience stores' sell? All the vices an american needs:
- Cigarettes
- Alcohol
- Coffee
- Fried Food
- Candy
- Scratch Tickets
- Gasoline
At high margins, in typically economically blighted areas.
There's no Whole Foods in the ghettos here. No Trader Joes, no Crossfit, not even a grocery store.
But there are a dozen convenience stores, and they all accept food stamps. Nothing says 'we care' like letting the government buy the sugar you've marked up 300%
'Oh but that woman should get a job and learn how to cook a meal and not have as many children.'
And I think this is the worst ^ People don't realize how much different lives can be in just a few zip codes. I spent the last three years of my life living in a ghetto surrounding a law school, complete with decrepit houses, unemployment and homelessness, I saw a kid get profiled by a patrol beat for the crime of walking on the sidewalk at 9 at night.
"Where's your ID?"
'Man I ain't got no ID'
"Why not?"
'I'm 12'
"Why are you walking around at night?"
'My momma too sick to make dinner so I was walkin to Jimmy John's'
And yeah, now I live ten miles away in the largest retail corridor in the state. The average home here is 330-500k, all of which would be at least a million if on the coasts or anywhere worth living. There isn't a cigarette butt or piece of trash on the ground because someone's paid to clean and most people don't walk. I live in an apartment building above a spa, chiropractor, dietitian, yoga gym, and aspen fitness. All the women under 50 drive big black premium SUVs and dye their Kate Gosselin haircut bottle blonde.
There's a goddamn pet bakery that's been a viable business for ten years. There are cupcake botiques. The only minorities in the area are those doing maintenance. There's a literal football stadium and two of the three best school districts in the state are within 5 miles.
Ten fucking miles and it's a different universe. Those people who lived in that ghetto might as well be on the fucking moon. And they're just left there to rot. Like people chose to be born there. Like people deserve poverty. Deserve incarceration. Like drug addiction *deserves* to be a death sentence.
Our impulse problems are a reflection of our society.
). It'd be an interesting experiment nothing more. 
