The two-edged glass bladed sword

I’m so square that when I moved to Saipan and heard that some folks here smoked ice, I thought “what an interesting way to deal with the tropical heat!” I envisioned some sort of smoldering snow cone and giggling children inhaling the cooling fumes. I wondered why I hadn’t seen this charming practice in the other tropical places I’ve worked–smoking ice must have been a well guarded secret out here, I figured.

It turns out, of course, that “ice” is actually an insidious drug. It’s not frozen water, it’s crystallized death. I don’t have a “writer’s guide to illegal drugs” book handy, but I believe ice is related to methamphetamine, which, in some form or another, was the drug of choice for outlaw biker gangs in the western U.S.

The “ice” scourge–or the worries surrounding it–hit the papers again, when Public Health Secretary Joseph Villagomez issued a warning that the use of ice is on the rise again.

Which is logical enough warning, given that ice is presumably unhealthy and folks at Public Health are supposed to promote healthy stuff and discourage unhealthy stuff.

But here’s another thing to ponder: Just who the heck has the TIME to take this drug? If everyone is smoking ice and turning into a loony, then presumably they’re not working, studying, cleaning the house, or changing the spark plugs in the pickup truck. How can they survive, then? Who supports them?

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who work hard and are productive, and those who don’t work hard and are unproductive. This distinction existed before “methamphetamine” was ever a word.

Which is to say, then, that “ice,” and all the other drugs out there, are symptoms of society’s problems, not really the causes. We love to cut at the branches of the problem, but very few ever chop at the roots.

I, personally, don’t care what toxic substances people put in their bodies, as long as I don’t have to look at them or deal with them. Want some heroin? Fine with me, jam it into your eyeballs with a rusty needle, for all I care. Ice? Smoke it until your brain explodes. Mister Darwin will be watching.

But don’t we all have unhealthy habits? I eat Big Mac hamburgers, which, because of the fat content, are a decided health risk. I drink beer. I smoke cigars. I suppose if I was infinitely rational, I’d do none of these things. My unhealthy behaviors are, however, “socially acceptable.” So who am I–or anyone else who’s eaten a Big Mac, had a brewski, or stoked up a Don Thomas Special Edition stogie–to preach about unhealthy habits? Tobacco and fatty foods have killed more Americans in a year than “ice” will kill in a century.

Ice (like beer, cigars, and Big Macs) is one of the two edges of the glass-bladed prosperity sword. I doubt that ice was a problem here 30 years ago. There’s more money here now, though, and a lot of people have choices as consumers that they didn’t used to have. Ice is an extreme example of the types of choices that some people will make. Economics lurks in the shadows, as banned substances take refuge in the black market, where supply and demand are every bit as present as they are in the glaring lights of the New York stock exchange.