I’m just lucky but. I don’t have an addictive personality. I’ve seen people in nursing homes, on O2, sitting outside in winter weather smoking cigarettes. I can understand the relief from extreme pain from opioids and the fear of that pain returning. Or the teddy-bear like security of a pill and a noticeable effect.
Then there’s this Johnson and Johnson suit. Really. How is $572 million paid to the state going to help these poor souls? Has Johnson and Johnson produced products that helped anyone? Hell yes! This reward to the state for creating dependence on itself will only make things worse for everyone by removing another point of personal responsibility.
Ultimately we do what we do from our own desire to please ourselves. The fly in the ointment here is the idea of a safety net everpresent. We might not think about it but the fulfilment of immediate gratification (as Jan Michaelson told me) is the first indicator of the degradation of civil society.
A reward to The State doesn’t get to The People. It just drains a company of funds that fuel a vast research infrastructure that has helped society in immeasurable ways.
alternativebyfritz 
“ . . . the fulfillment of immediate gratification (as Jan Michaelson told me) is the first indicator of the degradation of civil society.” And a focus on “diversity” and “multiculturalism” is what is destroying the country. When the majority of a population consists of ethnic groups that are incapable of abstract thinking (in terms of anticipating future possibilities associated with one’s actions/behavior), then we get African , Central American, and South American countries where the populations contribute pretty much zero to the growth of society at large. Declining fertility rates among ancestors of the mostly Western Europeans who birthed the once greatest nation on the planet also help to hasten the demise of America.