Addiction

One of the most evil things that we talk about in our society is addiction. In nearly every form, it's the root of evil. Addiction to cigarettes, addiction to alcohol, addiction to TV, addiction to junk food, addiction to work, they are all the extremely evil end of things that are not necessarily intrinsically bad. So, I'm sure that I am not alone in thinking that a mechanism for eliminating addictions would be a great service to society.

As a matter of fact, Pfizer, Inc. seems to agree and has been marketing a pill called varenicline to eliminate cigarette addiction (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19683029/wid/11915773?gt1=10150), and now that they have found this drug to be so successful with smokers, they are targeting alcoholics next. According to the news article the drug works by attaching itself to the pleasure receptors in your brain in place of the nicotine, alcohol, or theoretically whatever other stimulant you're adding to your system so that there is no gain from drinking, smoking, gambling, etc.

Although the article is sketchy on details, it seems that the idea is that you would take this pill rather than grabbing a cigarette, bottle of Jack, or deck of cards and voila: you're cured of your evil addiction. I really wish there were more details on this, though, because it seems to me that if the reason a person is addicted in the first place is because of these pleasure receptors receiving stimulation from whatever evil substance you're using, then replacing that with varenicline is just a substitute addiction.

Sure, the drug has been successful in getting people to stop smoking, but are they now sneaking down to the parking garage between meetings to pop another varenicline out of a Pez dispenser? Is this drug really a miracle cure or is it just a way to divert revenue from the evil big tobacco companies to the slightly less evil pharmaceutical companies? I'm betting on the latter.

The only thing better than curing someone of an addiction is getting them addicted to a cure for addiction.