Unlimited Growth Increases the Divide

Building in Gastown, Vancouver. The tenant in the top right apartment was hanging out the window smoking a cigarette till I pulled out my phone. We waved at each other, as they dipped inside for me to take the photo.

As I prepare to begin writing up what I have discovered about addiction over the last three years, I am struck by how little we talk about the social context of this problem.

I was struck today by a story about a lawsuit brought by the Seattle public school board against big tech companies. The lawsuit claims that social media are key contributors to the youth mental health crisis and that they have been deliberately engineered to create a dependence (Reuters, 2023). The mental health problems created online impact upon students, which in turn requires schools to dedicate time and resources to addressing these needs. Social media companies profit off their ubiquity, while the education system (along with families) bear the brunt of the consequences. If we truly valued education or mental health, we would not expect nor want teachers to take this on.

This is not unlike the implication of Purdue Pharma in the opioid crisis, which cost more than 1600 British Columbians their lives in the first nine months of 2022 (BC Gov News, 2022). In the US, a lawsuit alleged that the company put profits ahead of people’s health and wellbeing, resulting in an 8 billion dollar settlement with the US Justice Department in 2020, and criminal charges against the Sackler family (US Dept of Justice, 2020).

In 2018, the BC government began a class-action lawsuit against five pharmaceutical companies (including Purdue Pharma). They settled quickly, with Purdue Pharma paying 150 million dollars to BC to help in covering health care costs (BC Attorney General, 2022), a drop in the bucket considering the estimated 5 billion dollars that the crisis has cost Canada in lost productivity alone (University of Alberta, 2019). If we valued community, we would not expect municipalities to emend corporate irresponsibility.

Although discourse is slowly shifting, we are quick to individualize the problem of addiction. It is easier to reduce the issue to one of willpower or of disease, both of which situate the problem within the individual. As we begin to talk more openly about mental health, it is vital that we consider the wider social context of addiction.

Interestingly, the most consistent theme that has come out of my interviews with people who have recovered from substance use is the importance of connection to oneself, to others and to the world. Applying a wider lens to this individual experience, if we are really going to address the problem of addiction, we have to do so from this same perspective, by making connections between the individual and society.

References:

BC Attorney General (2022). https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022AG0044-001031

BC Government News (2022). https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022PSSG0069-001656

Reuters (2023). https://www.reuters.com/technology/seattle-public-schools-blame-tech-giants-social-media-harm-lawsuit-2023-01-08/

University of Alberta (2019). https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2019/10/opioid-crisis-has-cost-canada-nearly-5-billion-in-lost-productivity-u-of-a-student-finds.html#:~:text=Folio-,Opioid%20crisis%20has%20cost%20Canada%20nearly%20%245%20billion%20in%20lost,than%2011%2C000%20lives%20since%202016.

US Department of Justice (2020). https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-global-resolution-criminal-and-civil-investigations-opioid