565

In Praise of the Harrison Act of 1914

"Every person possesses his own dose of natural opium, ceaselessly secreted and renewed, and from birth to death how many hours can we reckon of positive pleasure, of successful and decided action?"











"...One result is hysteria. This indeed is the result gained by the endless flow of noise regarding addiction. The insidious monster of addiction is waiting to enslave anyone, from the President’s wife to the average working person. It could be a substance, or it could be a process. Drugs, sex, eating, shopping, or even working could all be means to addiction. Anyone could become an addict; anything could be addicting. Such discourse, once internalized, produces an involuntary panic that causes a crisis in the ability to distinguish appropriate desires and actions from inappropriate ones. In turn, a frenzied search begins for an exterior authority that can validate the state of nonaddiction.