Britney Spears is not just the latest celebrity substance abuse train wreck, nor is she just the opportune diversion for our media eager to obscure private grand theft of the public sector. (Ignore war, warming and the economy, give me more Britney!) Ms. Spears is now also the poster child for corporate America’s biggest crime partners, the pharmaceutical industry.
Is there a medicinal remedy for alcoholism, for a methamphetamine habit, or any chemical addiction? Not really. But there certainly is a burgeoning market for psycho stabilizing, mood tempering meds. And Britney is their “it” girl.
Unlike Clara Bow, or for that matter Mary Pickford forward to Lindsey Lohan, Spears is being pegged for mental disorder normalization, not behavior correction. There’s a well paved road of drug and alcohol excess in Hollywood. Some stars overdose, some recover, just as you or I in anytown, anystate USA far off the tabloids. Frances Farmer was an unwelcome trend setter in the days before Lithium and Thorazine. Imagine if Ed McMahon had been able to pitch Paxil in the wings like Alpo.
Poor Brit. She’s got something the drug companies can cure and they can cure you too if you exhibit her symptoms. Lord knows it’s not uncommon, driving intoxicated, clinging to your children as they are taken from you because you are being judged unfit. Take heart, the diagnosis is not alcoholism which would require government intervention, education, diminished alcohol sales and advertising revenue; it’s not illegal drugs, which would mean more education and law enforcement; it’s not prescription drugs which would require more regulation, education, and a big hit to drug company profits. It’s… would you believe it? MORE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS!
A quick fix for Britney. She’s not drunk, she’s not addicted, she’s certifiable! She’s psychotic, bipolar, manic, etc, it’s treatable! Have you been feeling angry, depressed, tired, driven mad yourself? The pharmaceutical peddlers have a remedy for you. Not less booze, less drugs, or less meds, but more meds. Everyone’s a winner!
The solution to gluttony isn’t fewer potato chips but more of the Olestra butt leakage variety. Consumer-temperance paradox averted. patient’s infirmity stabilized, IV firmly tapped into bank account. Have you seen the prices of the insanity-normalizing medications? Insane! You’re going to wish you had universal health insurance. Or that you could just stop drinking.