“We need to remember, as our bongs gurgle merrily, how
our society and its rituals have been shaped around the original legal drug. We
teach the young about its dangers. We have an entire subculture, in Alcoholics
Anonymous, that has grown up to help the people who have a deadly relationship
with drink. And still we bury 140,000 Americans a year who die from drinking
too much; guns kill only a third as many. This is what we pay for the freedom
to drink. The bill for the freedom to take drugs is yet to be presented.”—Financial
commentator Robert Armstrong, “How America Got High As a Kite,”
The Financial
Times, Nov. 18-19, 2023
The image accompanying this post shows Nicolas Cage in
his Oscar-winning role as a depressed alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas.
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