What our legal drugs tell us about our society

As many of you already know, I am for the legalization of all recreational drugs, for it is not a government’s place to regulate what one can and cannot do with their own bodies. Conversely, I am opposed to anybody taking them. Of course, I cannot legally forbid them for it would contradict my first point, and I respect everybody’s right to choose whether or not they want to do drugs, both illegal and legal, but I personally like to keep my mind as sharp and fresh as possible. Therefore, I do not partake in taking both illegal drugs, such as cannabis, opiates, and the like, or legal drugs, such as caffeine, tobacco, or alcohol. But enough about illegal drugs; let’s talk about the legal ones.

Many people say that to understand a society one must look at the drugs that are both legal and socially acceptable. Our society has just three: tobacco, caffeine, and alcohol. I will examine each drug’s impact on our society, and then try and come up with some possible explanation for what light the legal status of the drug in question can shed on our society.

First up is tobacco. Most commonly obtained through smoking a cigarette, tobacco is a worldwide problem that is very prevalent here in the United States. In the US alone, 46 million people smoke cigarettes regularly. That’s 20.6% of the entire population of the country. Scarier still is that 17.2% of high school students smoke cigarettes regularly. The health problems that come along with smoking should come as no surprise to anybody; every one in five deaths in the United States is a smoking related issue. Worldwide, smoking accounts for over 5 million deaths each year. But of course, the tobacco companies pay no mind to these deaths, for they make so much money that they could care less wether some people happen to die from using their product. And they want more and more people to use it. In 2006 alone, over $12 billion dollars were spent on advertising for cigarettes. That’s $34 million spent on advertising every day. Sadly, it works, for in 2006 $83.6 billion dollars were spent on cigarettes alone.

It is quite obvious that tobacco is a serious problem in our society that causes a myriad of issues, including lung cancer, throat cancer, respiratory issues, and a whole slew of other deadly health problem. But what does the act of smoking tell us about our society? Primarily, it shows that we are a society that is greedy beyond belief. The tobacco barons who make obscene amounts of money off of other people’s deaths care not for said people, they only care about the money they’re making. And for some strange reason, we accept that. People are not outraged that this is happening. Perhaps because it has been going on for so long people just don’t give thought to it. Perhaps other issues in society, such as an assorted celebrities death or another's pregnancy or maybe a new song came out or the like. Whatever the cause, it still shows that our society not only accepts but rewards greedy bastards who care more about their profit margin than they do about human life.

What does tobacco show about the people who smoke, however? Tobacco has no discernable “high” like most other drugs. The nicotine in cigarettes can cause a sort of lightheadedness, but that lasts for a few minutes at best and is nowhere near as intense as the highs of things such as cannabis. There can be a high in certain cigarettes that last for a bit longer, but it still doesn’t reach the level that things such as cannabis highs do. So why do people start smoking if there is seemingly no benefit? Societal pressures; people want to be accepted, and if their friends are smoking, they’ll start as well. People are malleable, and many cannot stand peer pressure. And so tobacco companies thrive on people having cigarettes to fit in. Regardless of how they start, they stay smoking because it is made to be addictive. It is made to keep you coming back and buying more and more cigarettes, giving your disposable income to the tobacco companies for as long as you live, until you keel over and die from your excessive tobacco use. So tobacco shows us two things about our society; greed is acceptable and praised regardless of the cost on human life, and that people are malleable and will do obscene and outright dangerous things to be accepted by others.

Next we turn to the drug that many people deny is a drug at all: caffeine. Caffeine is so prevalent and socially acceptable in our society that many consider it taboo to call it a drug at all. I do not care what dream world they reside in, for caffeine is most certainly a drug. Like tobacco with cigarettes, the main form of caffeine consumption worldwide is the coffe industry. Whilst only a little over 20% of American adults reported regular cigarette use, the disturbingly high number of 90% of adults in the United States reported using coffee on a regular basis. The average adult consumes around three and a half cups of coffee daily. Equally as terrifying, 75% of children from the ages of 8 to 12 years old reported daily coffee consumption.

Whilst coffee has no immediate health risks that result in death, their effects are much more subtle and less noticeable than the likes of tobacco and alcohol. And it’s not so much the health effects that coffee cause as it is the societal effects. For instance, caffeine, when consumed moderately, has been shown to reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, and Parkinson's disease as well as improving endurance. However, it has also been shown to increase one’s heart rate, blood pressure, and may even cause irregular heartbeats. Also, coffee is an addictive stimulant, for it changes the structure of your brain and makes it more alert and hyperactive. Therefore, if one were to try and stop consuming coffee, their brain and their whole body would feel very lethargic, slow, and less active. They could even experience coffee withdrawal. The coffee companies don’t mind, and as long as people are willing to drink coffee they are happy to oblige their addiction. The global coffee industry amasses around $60 billion a year. However, less than 10% of that money ends up in the hands of the farmers in third-world countries who actually grow the crop; most goes to the international conglomerates who distribute and sell coffee to the consumers.

So what does coffee reveal about our society? Obviously it shows that executives once again care about profit more than humanity, and have no qualms selling an addictive stimulant to adults and children alike. However, because the health risks are less obvious, it is harder to make such a conclusion. No, I think the real insight coffee gives us is with the typical consumer. Caffeine is a drug that stimulates one’s mind into working faster and keeps them from sleeping. This shows that our society values a productive and fast individual who can contribute to a company daily. At the pace our economy works the typical employee, without coffee many of them would fizzle out and not be able to take the work load. Coffee is a supplement that allows people to work extremely long hours completing extraordinarily large amount of tasks. Coffee is a vital component of our modern economy, and without it many businesses cannot and would not thrive. Coffee is essential in keeping the typical worker working day after day, even though they are not getting enough sleep. Coffee allows us as a society to work for longer than we normally could work. That shows that we value productivity, regardless of the health risk and the fact that it is an addictive stimulant that allows us to be so productive. It appears that society is willing to sell its mind for a little more productivity.

Finally that brings us to the end of our journey: alcohol. Like caffeine, alcohol is extremely prevalent in our society. Over 75% of all adults consume alcohol regularly in the United States. 41.8% of all high school students regularly drink alcohol. Of these 41.8%, over 60% engage in binge drinking. Among adults, over 20% of drinkers engage in binge drinking. Alcohol, like tobacco, has enormous health risks, both physical and mental. Each year, around 79,000 people die from alcohol poisoning alone. That number is significantly higher if one adds the number killed from drunk driving and alcohol induced homicide. Alcohol can cause liver cancer, as well as alcoholism. Alcoholics, or those who have an excessive addiction to the drug, can ruin families, ruin their own lives, and even take the lives of others. Whilst caffeine is a stimulant, alcohol is a depressant; that is, caffeine makes you more alert and awake, and alcohol dulls your senses and slows things down. The two make a nice mix; drink coffee to keep the worker productive, but once they’re down make them drink alcohol so they forget the whole experience of working and dumb themselves down to ever question why they’re drinking both coffee and alcohol. Once again, it seems companies care not for the societal ills that their product inflict upon society, for the alcohol industry made over $80 billion last year alone.

Now that I’ve thrown a bunch of facts at you about alcohol, what does it say about our society? First and foremost, it shows that we as a people need an escape mechanism to run away from everyday life. As caffeine makes us more productive, we want to forget about work and “just have a good time,” so we turn to alcohol. Alcohol makes us more confident, more relaxed, more outgoing; it makes us what we wish we were. So we go out, make ourselves dumber and do stupid things to try and escape from the society that we live in. A society so focused on greed and profits and productivity that the only way to escape is through a drug that impaires your ability to think. And so we consume alcohol, not because we want to, but because we have to. To avoid going crazy from all the mayhem, we need to drink alcohol and forget all our troubles, even if it’s just for a little while.

Together, the three legal drugs create a triangle that controls society. Tobacco keeps people addicted, helpless, and constantly spending their disposable income on something they don’t really want nor do they need. Caffeine keeps people productive and constantly working so they can’t think about the work they’re really doing. And alcohol is used to make people forget all their troubles and leave the real world for a bit. As Bill Hicks so eloquently said, “Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in.” The legal drugs do indeed create a prison that we must break out of, and only through understand their effects on our everyday life can we possibly hope to begin the process of escaping.

Sources:

Tobacco Facts:

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/index.htm#core10

Coffee Facts:

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/guatemala.mexico/facts.html

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2004/09_29_04.html

http://app1.unmc.edu/publicaffairs/todaysite/sitefiles/today_full.cfm?match=7520

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/coffee_health_risk

Alcohol Facts:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Lifestyle/adults_binge_drinking_cdc_0610100540.html

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/msbgsramro.pdf

http://www.ehow.com/about_5462551_alcohol-industry.html