I Need A Fix

Recently, an article in the New York Times analyzed the genetic engineering agenda. Basically the article was advocating the prioritizing of studying the varying effects genetics can have on different diseases. The things that need to be first up on the plan are the conditions that are just uncontrollable, that environment or behavior can't change. Stuff like breast cancer or Type I diabetes. Other stuff like hypertension that can be helped with diet and exercise should take a back seat. What was most startling about the article that addiction was one of the things that could be possibly studied and worked on.

I guess somewhere deep in my mind I realized that addiction is probably something influenced by genetic factors. Certain individuals get addicted to things much more hardcore than others. But does it really warrant study, and possible treatment to make sure that they don't get addicted? It seems like this type of action is overreacting. Addiction is a part of human nature. I can't imagine going to my neighborhood genetic engineering firm in the future and ordering a baby that couldn't get addicted. The positives, like avoiding dangerous narcotics and Spice Girls albums, don't outweigh the negatives.

Is it me or is addiction one of the reasons that humans have sustained life for all these years? If people didn't get addicted, people wouldn't have evolved to the place where we are. In my view, addiction is pivotal to passion. Would Edison have kept working to get that light bulb working if he weren't addicted to making sure it did work? Would Gandhi have been as passionate at working towards a free India if he didn't get a taste of that drug freedom during his studies abroad? I doubt that very highly.

I mean look at love. That's the best addiction out there. Something about when you kiss that special someone makes you want to get another taste later, and another one, and another one. Love makes you addicted to making sure that the other person is taken care of, that harm doesn't come their way. Is it worth rewiring the framework of a human to make sure they don't waste their time on nicotine if the end result is a person who can't feel passion? The results would resemble an assembly line of robots that has been the subject of book after book and movie after movie. That type of world seems cold and uninhabitable.

Addiction is how some of the world's great achievements have been met. Beethoven was addicted to those symphonies. Warhol was addicted to those paintings. And if that starving musician strumming on a guitar in a coffeehouse somewhere lost that addiction to keep writing and try to find that chord, the world would lose the wonderful palette of hues that makes it worth getting up those mornings where everything doesn't seem to make sense.

I'm all for the study of addiction. I'd love to know what neurons have to fire and what receptors have to be hit in order for an addiction to latch in the brain, and how it can be broken up. But don't take away the ability for it to happen. That's just way too harsh.