This Kids are Not Alright: A Brief Critique of the Pharmaceutical-Industrial-Complex

I am aghast by the cultural ethos concerning drugs and addiction. People have been made blind by the pharmaceutical-industrial-complex.

Generally, addiction to drugs, especially to ones like methamphetamine and heroin, is considered a moral failing of the individual. It is considered disgusting and harmful on all strata of society.

That said, there is a current of cultural schizophrenia that runs through the heart of society. Psychiatrists and physicians hand out drug cocktails and allow their patients to get hooked on them. That is what a "drug treatment regiment is": it is a straight-up addiction.

For example, I know people who have been given opioids like Hydrocodone, Tramadol, and OxyContin, which have physical withdraw symptoms and can cause respiratory depression. These people have then been told by their doctors to take multiple pills daily, exacerbating habituation and abuse.

Ironically, this is NOT considered an addiction in society. It is called a prescription medication that is given on a treatment schedule.

Can someone explain why psychiatrists can give people highly addictive drugs, get their patients to abuse them, and no one calls those addicts moral failures or disgusting addicts?

The social hypocrisy is glaring. Someone with a pocketful of meth can get taken to a cage on the streets for being an addict "in possession," but if they possess extremely powerful psychiatric pills and a piece of paper from a doctor, they are free to go!

When you examine social failings like these, you wake up to the contradictions inherent in our culture. You realize the kids are not alright, but neither are the adults.

To clear up any misunderstandings, all drugs should be "legal." There should be no law banning them, and there should be no "medical professionals" who have a government-perpetuated monopoly on the distribution and use of drugs. It's this monopolization on healing that has caused all the cultural schizophrenia throughout society.

Addicts, no matter what substance they abuse, should simply receive help, but only if they want it.