sarettah
12-13-2004, 03:41 PM
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/20733/
The New 'New Heroin'
By Radley Balko, Reason. Posted December 13, 2004.
Veterans of the hysteria industry have known for some time that the best way to win attention for a pet cause is to compare it to heroin.
In case you missed it, cheese is the new morphine. At least that's what the head of the animal rights group (and oddly named) Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reports.
At a November Congressional hearing designed to stir up hysteria over something Congress can't do much about (Internet porn), psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover said, "Modern science allows us to understand that the underlying nature of an addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction."
Moreover, Satinover told Sen. Sam Brownback's committee, "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," he said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."
So it's worse than heroin.
Cultural busybodies have long known that in post-this-is-your-brain-on-drugs America, the best way for to win attention for a pet cause is to compare it to some scourge that already scares the bejesus out of America.
........................................
a Google search finds experts declaring slot machines (The New York Times Magazine), video slots (the Canadian Press) and casinos (Madison Capital Times) the "crack cocaine of gambling," respectively.
.......................................
spam email is "the crack cocaine of advertising" (Sarasota, Fla. Herald Tribune)
cybersex is a kind of sexual "spirtual crack cocaine" (Focus on the Family).
........................................
You might say that heroin "is the new crack cocaine" of overly enthusiastic drug war comparisons.
One gambling opponent told the Christian Science Monitor in 1988 that, "Gambling is a rush like heroin, [and] a big win in gambling creates the same feeling as a coke high."
...............
Suzanne Moore, warned in the Independent that though the British government worried of a heroin epidemic, alcohol is "far more deadly."
...............
Rep. Marc Souder called a congressional hearing last year where he compared the lethality of ecstasy to that of heroin.
...............
corporate executives at Qwest Communications became dependent on the fraud they perpetrated, "like a heroin addiction."
...............
BBC exaggerated a report in the New Scientist to conclude that "cheeseburgers and French fries can be as addictive as heroin."
...............
Master's and Johnson's Dr. Mark Schwartz told The New York Times in 2000 that "sex on the Net is like heroin. It grabs [users] and takes over their lives. And it's very difficult to treat because the people affected don't want to give it up."
...............
Richard Forno wrote: "Technology, like gambling and heroin, is addictive."
A Chicago Sun Times columnist took aim at video games. "Role-playing games such as Everquest run worldwide around the clock," he wrote, "so it's always available. And, like heroin, the first taste (month) is free."
One Canadian news service article likened Ebay to heroin and cocaine but, to be fair, admitted that researchers hadn't formally established any similarities just yet.
The Port St. Lucie News, which actually called the prescription painkiller Oxycontin, "the new crack."
Karl Marx famously called religion the opiate of the masses. Today, he might point out that hysteria has become the heroin of talking heads.
.................................................. ................
The New 'New Heroin'
By Radley Balko, Reason. Posted December 13, 2004.
Veterans of the hysteria industry have known for some time that the best way to win attention for a pet cause is to compare it to heroin.
In case you missed it, cheese is the new morphine. At least that's what the head of the animal rights group (and oddly named) Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reports.
At a November Congressional hearing designed to stir up hysteria over something Congress can't do much about (Internet porn), psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover said, "Modern science allows us to understand that the underlying nature of an addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction."
Moreover, Satinover told Sen. Sam Brownback's committee, "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," he said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."
So it's worse than heroin.
Cultural busybodies have long known that in post-this-is-your-brain-on-drugs America, the best way for to win attention for a pet cause is to compare it to some scourge that already scares the bejesus out of America.
........................................
a Google search finds experts declaring slot machines (The New York Times Magazine), video slots (the Canadian Press) and casinos (Madison Capital Times) the "crack cocaine of gambling," respectively.
.......................................
spam email is "the crack cocaine of advertising" (Sarasota, Fla. Herald Tribune)
cybersex is a kind of sexual "spirtual crack cocaine" (Focus on the Family).
........................................
You might say that heroin "is the new crack cocaine" of overly enthusiastic drug war comparisons.
One gambling opponent told the Christian Science Monitor in 1988 that, "Gambling is a rush like heroin, [and] a big win in gambling creates the same feeling as a coke high."
...............
Suzanne Moore, warned in the Independent that though the British government worried of a heroin epidemic, alcohol is "far more deadly."
...............
Rep. Marc Souder called a congressional hearing last year where he compared the lethality of ecstasy to that of heroin.
...............
corporate executives at Qwest Communications became dependent on the fraud they perpetrated, "like a heroin addiction."
...............
BBC exaggerated a report in the New Scientist to conclude that "cheeseburgers and French fries can be as addictive as heroin."
...............
Master's and Johnson's Dr. Mark Schwartz told The New York Times in 2000 that "sex on the Net is like heroin. It grabs [users] and takes over their lives. And it's very difficult to treat because the people affected don't want to give it up."
...............
Richard Forno wrote: "Technology, like gambling and heroin, is addictive."
A Chicago Sun Times columnist took aim at video games. "Role-playing games such as Everquest run worldwide around the clock," he wrote, "so it's always available. And, like heroin, the first taste (month) is free."
One Canadian news service article likened Ebay to heroin and cocaine but, to be fair, admitted that researchers hadn't formally established any similarities just yet.
The Port St. Lucie News, which actually called the prescription painkiller Oxycontin, "the new crack."
Karl Marx famously called religion the opiate of the masses. Today, he might point out that hysteria has become the heroin of talking heads.
.................................................. ................