Is a Healthier Society Worth a Higher Price Tag?

As they say, a drug addict will always find money to buy his drugs. It’s more like you having money to buy water to drink all the time. That’s how it for these drug addicts and abusers of other stuff.

Addiction is a disease many of us are suffering from. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with harmful substances alone, even the normal things we take in excess can lead to addiction because too much of everything they say is bad. I remember some time ago I used to be a huge coke addict. I could drink about 2-3 litres of coke in a day and would still crave for more at the end of the day. I didn’t realise I got addicted until someone pointed it out because I took it to be something normal, after all everyone drinks coke, you know.

At that time, what I didn’t know was that aside me being addicted to coke, I was investing more in it than I should. Those days, a litre of coke didn’t cost much but calculate 3 litres a day for a week, then a month, and keep going. I could have even used that money to build a house at the end of the year but I decided to drink coke instead. At the end of the day, I had to make a mental note to do away with this addiction in order to save money and stay healthy also.

Not everyone gets to make huge progress to get rid of their addiction. Some people just come to a conclusion that it is what it is and so they’d just keep on with it since they’ve already started. But sadly, that’s not how things should be. We all do make mistakes in our lives but whether we come back from them or not is up to us. Our lives should come first before any addiction or satisfaction we are looking for from whatever thing we are consuming.

I know for a fact that even if the government should inflate the prices of cigarettes, alcohol, carbonated drinks, energy drinks, sugar , tramadol and whatever the youth is addicted to today, they would still find ways and means to procure it, even if it means stealing. Sometimes it’s best not to push people to their limits because when it comes to addiction it’s more like a subsidised form of madness. People will go to any lengths to get what they want and that would be a the expense of innocent people.

Personally, I think instead of the government imposing hefty tasks on such things, they should rather start sensitising the general population on the negative effects of addiction , what they’re giving up for this not so long lasting pleasure, what they lose at the end of the day and many more effects they don’t not realise their addiction is having on then. Then, provide avenues to help people who need to work on their addiction like rehab centres or counselling centres. While all this is going on, the government can also impose huge taxes on such goods for those addicts that don’t want to listen. Maybe, this might lead them to the right path or not.

At the end of the day, there’s a limit to what the government can do, but they trying to punish people for their addiction isn’t the way to go. Rather, helping them tackle this issue is the best. Anyone of us could find ourselves there and so let’s help and hold one another in such times. That’s humanity.

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all images belong to me.

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