Today’s Guest Saturday post comes to us from Brian of the Frankenstein Government blog. Brian believes he may have solved an important mystery about how America has come to its current state. This essay was originally published on August 14, 2013.
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Junkie America
Late last night I stumbled onto a chart because I was trying to solve a mystery. Many of the people I am talking to online are evidently clueless about the FED and QE, our government, (spying and what constitutes treason) politics, and current events. They are apathetic. They just don’t care. A lot of their ideas- that we live in a democracy with free markets are completely half baked. Then it hit me. Maybe the people I am talking to are half baked. So I went hunting.
Our country has a spiritual problem. They think that the solution for money problems, health problems, relationship problems, family problems, or just boredom- is alcohol and drugs. People want to change the way they feel. That is addiction. And when people are using whatever drugs they use- they aren’t present and they sure as hell aren’t learning anything they will remember the following day.
Not only do I think drug and alcohol addiction in the US is at epidemic levels- I also happen to believe we have millions of addicts in the pipe line and the amount of people privately coping with addiction is far greater than what is reported.
This country is addicted to mood altering substances. Pot, meth, acid, benzos, pain killers, beer, wine, and alcohol. We are a junkie nation. Legal or illegal, it doesn’t matter.
No wonder nobody cares about what is going on in this country. Please inhale this chart. Each pill represents one million prescriptions. If you are currently wasted or hungover you can embiggen it by clicking on it.
This chart represents 217 million consciousness altering prescriptions per year. If I divide 217 million people by 12- one prescription per month, I arrive at 18 million people regularly using benzos. How about pot? I personally know at least 20 people who smoke pot once or twice a day. Many of them don’t drink. Here are the numbers.
In any case the “fact” of about 15 million regular marijuana users in the US (latest numbers – 2010 – show 17.4 million) are probably on the low end. So let’s say 20 million people regularly smoke pot.
I’m going to leave out all of the other illegal drug users which is hard to tally and instead, just focus on alcohol drinkers. Two thirds of our nation’s population admit to drinking 1-8 drinks or more per week. So lets add this up.
Click this link for the number of deaths and the billions that binge drinking cost us every year. (PDF) http://www.ajpmonline.org/webfiles/images/journals/amepre/AMEPRE_3854-stamped-081313.pdf
18 million benzo users (I’m leaving out pain killers like vicodin) +20 million pot smokers +200 million drinkers= 238 million people out of 310 million US citizens. That is nearly 80% of our population regularly using some mind altering substances. Obviously children and a couple million people in prisons and jails weren’t counted. Wow.
How could Congress with a 9% approval rate, have 94% of both houses re-elected in the 2012 elections?
Because this is who is doing the voting. Mystery solved.
Asylum Watch 
Cheerio my friend! What else is there to do… Maybe this explains it all.
Sobering. Pun intended.
Very interesting. But I’m skeptical about including “1-7 alcoholic drinks in the last 7 days” in the category of mind-altering. That’s basically a glass of wine with dinner. Hardly mind-altering and actually can be good for you.
But if you’re popping a daily prozac and binge drinking of 7 drinks in one sitting…yeah, that’s a problem.