By Stephen L. Hall
There is a certain connection between two seemingly unrelated topics which a conversation on the blog recalled to my mind, something I had observed before and might have commented regarding, but I think it behooves us to explore the relationship in greater depth in light of recent political discourse regarding our new president and the pseudo-attempt to repeal the Affordable care act. (How is that for a verbose sentence, FR?)
Firstly, one must consider the misguided notions people conceive regarding a common, and frequently recurring, societal problem. That is the problem of drug addiction; in the abstract, of course, and not in respect to any particular drug or type of addiction.
That misconception is that most people believe that drug addiction is the result of the addict chasing a high in a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, or the euphoric sensation of disconnection with reality and their daily lives through altered perceptions.
It is not the pursuit of pleasure which creates the addict, that may be for many the impetus for initial drug use and frequent use, but as many are aware often people become addicted to pain medication, such as opiods, through habitual use to relieve chronic pain and not because they were seeking to get high.
Opium, and opium products which were created to relieve chronic and acute pain have been known to lead to addiction going back to the late eighteen hundreds. This has been well documented from soldiers being prescribed morphine, a toned down version of opium, for treatment of pain from injuries during foreign engagements in Vietnam and the Korean conflicts. So does it actually surprise any reasoning person that the various opiods which have been created as toned down version of morphine tends to exhibit the same addictive properties?
It is not the pursuit of pleasure which creates the addict, but the avoidance of pain. As with any drug, those drugs which are the most addictive are those which generate in the body a reaction which we commonly call withdrawals.
Commonly, the “anti-depressants” which are prescribed are in reality depressants. While that may seem counter-intuitive to give a depressed person depressants, the body tends to react in the opposite fashion of the drugs it ingests in withdrawal from those chemicals, and that reaction lasts much longer and more severe than the initial chemical action. So by overloading the body’s neurological system with depressants, the neurons are largely depleted of the chemicals used to send those signals. In the absence of the chemicals to induce a depressive effect, the brain reacts with effectively a mild euphoria.
So it should be no surprise that the body reacts to pain suppressants by making the neurological system increasingly susceptible to pain, in addition to certain other side effects. It is the avoidance of these withdraws that motivate the addict; as opposed to the pursuit of the high, it is the aversion to the suffering.
A common language of the addict seeking such drugs, or the pusher seeking to sell such drugs is to refer to the condition as “hurting.” Hurting is that craving to supply the body with the desired chemical to stop the hurting, to prevent the pain, avoid the reaction of the body to the absence of the chemical which have been suppressing the pain.
“You know one thing I can’t stand that’s a dame who’s a drunk, I mean they turn my stomach. No good to themselves, or anybody else. She’s got the shakes, see, so she has a drink to get rid of ’em. That one tastes so good so she has another. Pretty soon, she’s stinko again.” Edward G. Robinson as Johnny Rocko in Key Largo.
So it is with another addiction which people never think of as an addiction, a mixed political economic system which embeds political favoritism and subsidies woven into the economic system through regulations, licenses, taxes, and tariffs which favor and disfavor various industries. Why do people not recognize the obvious symptoms of political addiction?
If you, or your family members, work in an industry which receives some sort of subsidy, then you become acutely aware of the detrimental, nay devastating, impact that the sudden withdrawal of that support for this industry will have on those who have become dependent upon that government largess.
Pell grants and student loans subsidize students’ educations in colleges and trade schools. Threatening to stop the government giveaway has young millenials crying in the streets, and even calling for the government to give them even more in the form of “free” education. But, have you ever questioned why so many liberal teachers take to the streets to join in the protests calling for these giveaways? Because their salaries and incomes depend on those students having the money to spend in their fancy education stores.
Voters in Iowa caucus are all demanding the government continue their farm subsidies, because they may not make the mortgage payments on their farms without those subsidies.
Licensed professionals: doctors, lawyers, barbers, & taxi drivers, look at the loss of the requirement that they be licensed in the first place as flooding the market with competition, thought they scream and complain that such competition will be incompetent, that the licenses are to protect the public, not their wallets.
If regulations protecting drug companies through the FDA from competition; media companies through the FCC; banks through the reserve system; insurance companies through state insurance commissioners; and a dozen others.
Old people are kept financially afloat through the Social Security subsidy and Medicare while poor people through the food stamps, HUD, & Medicaid. But, the hospitals, doctors, and nurses are just as dependent upon the Medicaid and Medicare payments as the poor and elderly.
Often one subsidy directly contradicts other subsidies or benefits thus are nothing short of a colossal waste of money, e.g. the government spends millions of dollars subsidizing tobacco farmers for growing tobacco, while at the same time funding stop smoking campaigns, while at the same time taxing cigarettes so that they do not want to actually stop the tax payer from buying those cigarettes.
So why should come as a surprise to anyone when they ask questions about why we can’t end the horrible government boondoggles like the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Or that legislatures on the state or federal or even city or county levels find it nearly impossible to withdraw they economic supports and subsidies which have infected the body politic with their fatal disease.
Those people directly affected are afraid of the withdrawal symptoms of the regulations, price supports, licenses, and subsidies. They fear the economic confusion which in their minds become the most disastrous, horrible, economic chaos imaginable, an economic boogeyman to frighten adults the way goblins frighten small children.
This is why government meddling in the economy grows, and is seldom, if ever, reduced. It is not because we do not know how to do the right thing, but because our addiction causes us to fear the withdrawal symptoms, the pain of market upheavals, employment dislocations, insecurity, and loss of income.
When you do the right thing legally and economically, there will be pain; there will be suffering. After the pain and suffering, things will get better, you can rebuild your life without the addiction of government regulations, free of the dependence of government subsidies. The key to breaking any addiction is being willing to pay the price of withdrawal, to resist the overwhelming urge to take a bit of the hair of the dog, to take that first drink. Have faith that the economy will get better, once you are through the withdrawals and the shakes go away.
