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This is the Eye of Grace. This is where the world is set straight before your simple minds. This is where the shit hits the fan.
You are nothing without me.
All American Junkie
“We’re all stars now – In the Dope Show”
- Marilyn Manson
A bunch of junkies huddle together in an uncomfortable room - some with the shakes, others with frantic stares and jerky movements - all waiting to score… to get that next fix. The door opens, and a man shuffles in. He’s pale and hollow eyed, and there is something unsettling about the way he keeps rubbing his arm. He looks around the room, scanning it for a spot in which to crash, finds nothing and starts an argument with a zoned out older man to get him to move. Someone from across the room tells him to shut up, and others join in. The newly arrived man gives up and leans against the wall instead, rubbing his temples. Is he talking to someone? The demons in his head? In a corner someone moans with pain, and a woman to the left starts to cry.
A run down shelter for street junkies? A rehab center? Downtown Lisbon on a Saturday night?
No… How about a waiting room for people with chronic pain at a respectable pain management clinic in downtown Tampa?
Everybody there is more or less an average Joe Schmoe. Some people have back pains, some have just had surgery, others got injured at work, and so on. What they all have in common is that they are hooked. They are hooked on the dope that the clinic happily prescribes them. You see, there is big money in dope. No, really! I’m serious. You would never have guessed it, but you can make a fortune selling narcotics to people with an addiction. Sure, you knew about the junkies in the street, but did you ever sit down and think about that what goes for that street, also goes for the doctor’s office? And if people are NOT addicted already, you make sure to hook them on it. Create your own customer base. It has been a winning concept on the streets for decades and decades, so why should the Corporate World also not want a slice of that pie?
Let’s look at it a little closer...
Let's meet Rico Suave. That's him, to the left there.
He deals mostly in crack. Rico operates on Amsterdam Avenue in New York and he is good at what he does. He works on referrals mostly, so he’s pretty much got his regulars recommending him to their friends. Consequently, he expands his customer base without really doing much. You give him some greens, he passes you a rock or a vial and everybody’s happy. Of course, all customers are returning customers because you can’t just get one hit of crack and then not wanna hit it again a little later. Rico is happy to comply. Sometimes he gets a supply of other drugs and sells his customers some coke or acid on the side as well. After all, some people prefer the lounge drugs. Different folks – different strokes.
Every once in a while The Friend comes along. He gets a rock for free. No, just take it, and then come see him again in a couple of days. He’ll hook you up. He’ll take care of you. Of course, The Friend drops in by himself the next week and wants some more of the stuff. Well, this time it’s gonna be ten bucks. But here, take this pipe. It smokes like a dream. Literally.
A few short months later the guy is so hooked on the shit he can’t function without it. He loses his job and his girlfriend and starts hanging with people just like him. He can’t afford to pay Rico’s prices anymore, and asks for a break. No, sorry. Rico can’t help you. Get the fuck out of here, you broke ass junkie fuck. Come back when you can pay to play. The full blown junkie roams the streets looking for a fix and is run over by an old woman in a Mercedes. Bo-hoo…
Rico doesn’t care. He’s got new customers sucking up his new merchandise, like bees on a spoon full of sugar. Business is business and life goes on.
- - -
Now, let's meet Dr. Blair.
He works in a respected pain management clinic. He went to medical school and graduated at the top of his class. He has worked in this field for 16 years now, taking care of people with chronic pains. He’s doing a damn good job too. His patients love him. They always ask specifically to see him again when they make their follow up appointments.
Today he is in a meeting with Mr. Loman from Dope is Dope Inc. Mr. Loman is showing him a flip chart of the benefits of this newly developed morphine, called Kickazine. It’s a dream, he tells Dr. Blair. Everybody who has ever tried it says it is so much better than methadone or regular painkillers, like Vicodin and Percocet. How about we make a deal? I will supply you with a considerable amount of “samples” for you to hand out at your own discretion, and for every prescription of Kickazine that you write out, and that gets filled, Dope is Dope Inc., will give you $5 – as a corporate kickback, of course. Like a retroactive discount almost. Perfectly legal. At the end of the year we’ll send you and the Mrs. to Hawaii as a thank you for business appreciated, of course.
Dr. Blair has a long established relationship with Dope is Dope Inc. and its products. Kickazine is the new rave in all the medical magazines and Dr. Blair has been waiting for this inevitable offer. After all, he is one of their best middle hands and he has always been very successful with all the other drugs this company represents. And then there is the kickback of course - the $5 he gets for every Kickazine prescription he writes out with his new Kickazine Parker pen. Considering he’s seeing about 30 patients a day - hell, let’s make that 50 from now on, Dolores - he can make a nice side income for himself.
A week later Dr. Blair is handing out samples left and right, and writing prescriptions like it’s going out of style. Now, here comes Mr. Christie. Mr. Christie fell and hurt his back three years ago and it has bothered him ever since. Well, not that much really, but it does feel a LOT better now that he’s on painkillers. He’s here to renew his prescription for Vicodin. Well, says Dr. Blair, we are going to try you out on something new, Mr. Christie, old sock. We are going to give you Kickazine. Take these samples and come see me in a week.
Mr. Christie comes back a week later. Doctor, he says, you gotta give me that Kickazine instead of the shit I’ve been taking. This stuff is MUCH better! Dr. Blair jots down a few notes on how well received the Kickazine was with the customer, eh, patient, and prescribes a month’s supply. Come see me again, Mr. Christie, next month. I’m so happy your pain is better. He throws a glance at the Kickazine wall clock and realizes it’s almost time to go home. $250 today in Kickazine revenues alone and the customers are happy. Life is good.
Mr. Christie goes home with his powerful morphine, happy as a pig in shit. He got the good stuff. No more pain. He tells his friend, who fell off a ladder a week ago, that he should go see Dr. Blair for his pain. That guy works wonders!
A week later Mr. Christie’s friend is enrolled in Dr. Blair’s Drugs for the Needy Program, and is pleasantly hopped up on Kickazine. Everybody’s happy. Dr. Blair thanks Mr. Christie for the recommendation and gives him a Kickazine Parker pen to keep.
Two years later Mr. Christie is still on Kickazine but his medical insurance expires and he can’t afford to renew it. Upon telling Dr. Blair the sad news, he gets a pat on the shoulder and the advice to call someone and see to it that he gets insurance. Can he afford it out of pocket? No? Well, that is too bad. See Dr. Blair is all out of free samples. It’s all very sad. Mr. Christie leaves the office in tears. His pain is starting to set in and the few Vicodin his wife got from a colleague are long gone. He runs into a friend who tells him he can enroll in a county sponsored rehab program. Mr. Christie sighs but realizes he has no choice.
At the rehab clinic he is sharing room with another unfortunate fellow and they go through the shakes together. The first time they meet, they share experiences. “Kickazine from Dr. Blair?” says Mr. Christie, wondering if his company in misery has the same background he has. “No, crack from Mr. Rico,” comes the reply.
See, what is the fucking difference? The case of drugs sold from a provider to an addict in the interest of monetary revenues is the same in both cases. You hook them, you reel them in, you keep them coming back for more, and throw them back in the sea when they can’t pay. In one case, Rico Suave gets the cash, ultimately sponsoring the drug barons of Columbia and wherever. In the other case, Dr. Blair and Dope is Dope Inc., make the money, with the government not exactly hurting in the background; healthy tax incomes, mutual back scratching as far as election contributions and law making go, and then there are politicians’ private investments in the medical industry, of course.
Don’t kid yourselves. If the Columbian Coke Factories were on American grounds instead they would have the backing, morally and legally, by the American Government, and be owned and marketed by Dope is Dope Inc., Dr. Blair would be prescribing vials of coke with his Coke Parker pen instead, glancing at a big ole Coke Wall Clock behind him. It must be pissing the Corporate Machine off that they haven’t figured out a way to get a foot in the door of that market… Yet…
Drugs are drugs. Some are more dangerous than others, and others are more expensive than most. In a capitalistic society with increasing stress levels, drugs will always be a factor. People with addictive personalities will get hooked and reeled into one of the boats, either Rico Suave’s boat or Dope is Dope Inc.’s boat. The problem is that the government cracks down hard on one of them, and pretends the other one doesn’t exist.
I don’t do drugs myself either way, but I don’t see why one is worse than the other. If you wanna do them, that’s your fucking problem, but you shouldn’t have to go to shady apartments on Amsterdam Avenue at the risk of doing serious prison time, to score a fix, when your neighbor gets better shit for free – paid by his insurance – totally legal.
Popping pills is the new Closet Drinking Disease in America. Everybody does it, everybody’s hooked. There’s a pill for everything. This problem has to be solved by our government at one of the two ends; either by cracking down harder on doctors who so casually prescribe drugs that generate the most personal kickback for them and getting their patients hooked on drugs they don’t really need, or by assuming full responsibility for the whole country’s medical care by prioritizing where exactly to put the money trickling into the treasury through the very taxes we pay. Should these go to foreign aid, war in remote countries or maybe, perish the thought, a modern civilized health care system? By assuming the responsibility for the welfare of its people, they can thereby also make sure the right medical treatment is provided for all its citizens, making sure the right drug is prescribed with no other motive in mind than that it is the right drug.
In many countries the responsibility of the nation’s health care has been taken to the ultimate level by adopting a strictly government run national health system. All medical staff, including all doctors, are employed by the county, backed and supervised by the government, and receive no pay other than their monthly wages from the county hospital, regardless of what they prescribe and how many patients they see. Maybe this is the only way to get around the money end of things. If you eliminate the doctor’s monetary interest in the drug he prescribes, maybe he can concentrate on the task at hand; deciding what is best for the patient. Maybe even, God forbid, heal the patient, instead of only treating the symptoms for the sake of generating repeat business.
I realize that capitalism has run too rampant, for good and bad, in this country for a social reform of that magnitude, but certain changes must be made for the sake of human decency and in the interest of the welfare of America. I’m all for people making money, but not at the expense of our health. Both Rico Suave and Dr. Blair drive brand new Cadillacs to their places of work and both cars were purchased with drug money. There has to be a way for the government to act as a speed bump in between the pharmaceutical companies and the prescribing doctor. The control systems that are so loosely in effect today don’t work. Drugs hit the market too soon, and there is no follow up on who prescribes what and why. Raise taxes to generate more income for the government to pump into a stricter health care system, with harder controls, benefiting us. Before you cry bloody murder over higher taxes and state control… we are ALREADY paying for the aftermath of these willy-nilly prescriptions gone bad. By pumping money into solving a problem instead of wasting it on cleaning up the human remains that otherwise follow, all of us would save money down the line.
The government has to realize that they work for us, not the Corporate World, and that they owe us to make sure we are not left dangling in the jaws of doctors with hidden agendas, and insurance and pharmaceutical companies with nothing but a commercial interest in our un-health and un-welfare. These people need to be monitored more astutely since they want us to be junkies. The exact same thing that Rico Suave wants, the despicable crack dealer on Amsterdam Avenue, relying on his junkie customers. We’re all either junkie customers or Dr. Blair’s follow-up patients on two different ends of the social spectrum, but we all fall the same, my friends. Once we hit rock bottom it’s too late. The doctors and companies wash their hands of our misery, and society has to clean up the mess in the ugly aftermath anyway; just like they have to when any other crackwhore OD’s in the Penn Station restroom.
There comes a time when our country will have to put its foot down and make a stand against the Corporate Machine that reigns supreme at the expense of the Health of America. Capitalism or not, is it worth it when your life is at stake?
Right now we’re in a double standard limbo with Street Sharks, Greedy Doctors and Joe Schmoes in rehab clinics.
~ The Eye of Grace ~
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Dealer # 2
Dealer # 1
