when doing harm is a great biz

by Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com)

one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the constant recall of dangerous and untested products from our market place. we all grew up with a more beneficial government and now live under the assumption that “it wouldn’t be legal if it was dangerous.”

but, that all went away very quickly under the reagan administration. we now have almost no protections until average people can repeatedly prove in court that a product is dangerous. even then, it’s no guarantee it will be removed form the market.

protections against dangerous exploitive products in the market today are so plentiful, we now have this mutually exclusive duality of 1) believing that it wouldn’t be sold if it was dangerous , and 2) we can sell and do anything we want so long as it makes us rich. nobody seems to see the contradictions in this system.

there’s nothing new in this problem. especially when it comes to the medical profession. the hypocratic oath of “first, do no harm” is a quaint relic of a bygone era that may even pre-date our country. there has never been much proof that such a code is actually practiced in a capitalist economy.

in fact, the opposite seems to be true. ‘doing harm’ is great business! just think of all those old adverts selling cigarettes as ‘goodfor you’. i rest my case.

the ‘tubercular’ look of the ‘starving artist’ became such a dominating fashionable look in the late part of the 1800’s that women were stayed out of the sun (to turn white as porcelain) and were sold ‘tape worm pills’. the tape worms (often scores of them) so emaciated you that you could look “tubercular” without effort. you could buy them in the sears catalog.

after the invention of morphine as a painkiller, we had a real problem with addiction – which wasn’t clearly understood. that’s why we still think of addiction as simply a will power or ‘personality problem’ and treat it with disdain as if it were a the result of inferiority. nevermind the addiction would happen because it was prescribed by doctors.

morphine was also used liberally to ‘solve’ problems as much as ‘cure’ problems. PMS (women’s vapors) and depression (brain fever) and indisposition (food poisoning – all too common before refrigeration) were all fixed up nicely by a little morphine. but, it had to be obtained through a doctor – often addicted as well. doc holiday was an addict. so was freud.

morphine addiction also looked quite pale and thin and ‘artistic’. so, women simply obtained it to remain fashionable looking. the addiction that followed became the stuff of much high drama as well. simply read eugene o’neill’s ‘a long days journey into night.’ morphine addiction was largely a problem associated with marrie

men. morphine was a family problem – therefore left unmentioned in proper circles.

thank god our medical industry teamed up with private enterprise to come up with a cure for morphine addiction, eh? they simply used the old “cross addiction’ therapy (think: methadone) and then ‘weaned’ the weak- willed womenfolk off the new drug with lessening of dosage until they were “cured” (or, when talking about women’s cases, “fixed”).

when this new wonder drug cure was first developed it was marketed with a snappy new name and a logo and commercial advertising. it was as ubiquitous as, well, morphine. in fact, it was purified, distilled morphine. they snappy new name was ‘heroin” (pronounced ‘heroine’, like a female hero. clever, huh?)

the lesson here, the lesson never learned, is that just because it’s for sale in the marketplace does NOT mean that it’s safe. this is a capitalist exploitive culture. people have no problem selling you anything at all if it means making a profit. if it kills you, well, let’s hope it’s a slow death and they can sell you a lot of product before you die – just like cigarettes. it’s the american way.

i wonder who was the snappy marketing designer who came up with this name and design? advertising makes it happen. something to REALLY think about the next job you work on. graphic designers are really dangerous people. — with Theheroinewhores Band and Simon Glombitza.

ADDENDUM:

AC:so,he ‘feminization’ of the personalization for heroics still stands as smart marketing. if i came up with that clever turn, i would be proud.

and the concept of ‘fix’? man, the idea that it may be based on misogyny is darkly, horribly beautiful…. actually, aspirin is one of the very oldest drugs know. it’s name origins go back to greco-roman times. it comes from the acacia bark that was chewed as an analstegic. it’s one of the oldest safest most amazing drugs known to man. a real ‘wonder drug’. but, we don’t  promote it without some sort of profit margin. so, we invent cute names and add caffeine to make it copyrightable. then we profit. bayer just did what everybody else did. make money off helpless sick people…. i wish leighton beezer were here to explain his theory about heroin and warzones. really interesting….