I woke up this morning to do my usual morning routine, which consists of showering, getting dressed and doing the South Park Digest. But considering that I have a broken heart – in the physical sense, not the emotional one – I also have to take my heart medication as part of my morning routine. Two prescription pills and one aspirin. But now that I have a cold, I have to take a Zithromax in the morning that the doctor prescribed for me yesterday, so I took it along with two Vitamin C pills and two garlic pills that my friend Stanley suggested I try to help get rid of my cold. Holding a handful of pills this morning made me realize that we are living in a pill poppin’ world.

It seems as if there is a pill for everything today. From headache to sexual dysfunction to loss of hair to depression. These days, they even prescribe one pill to get you off of another. And every time you turn around, there is another pill on the market. Is it me or does it seem that since prescription medication was allowed to advertise on television – we are seeing a whole new wave of pills hit the market?

I think the worst thing to happen to prescription drugs was the fact that they can now commercially advertise. For one thing, prescription drugs are ridiculously expensive to begin with – but now that they are spending millions of dollars on big advertising campaigns – who do you think is footing the bill? Answer that question when you go fill your next prescription. And another thing – have you seen some of these commercials? Some of them at least tell you what the pill is for – but some just say, “Ask your doctor about our pill” and don’t even tell you what the pill does. Have we become so dependent on medication that simply showing a person running through a field with a big smile on their face and hearing an announcer telling us to ask our doctor about the pill that made this person so happy will make us run to get a prescription? If that’s true – then God help us.

Think about it. Why do you think prescription drugs is such a big issue in the upcoming presidential election? Because it has become one of the country’s most profitable businesses. Voters want to make sure that the next president will ensure that he puts aside trillions of dollars of the nation’s money so we can have enough coverage to drug ourselves up without having the cost come out of our pockets – and this is a reason to vote for someone? And don’t think that the big pharmaceutical companies haven’t sent Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore a nice little campaign contribution to ensure that whomever is elected will “do the right thing” when it comes to their “special interest”.

I think as a society – we need to stop depending on these big pharmaceutical companies to keep looking for ways to make our “boo boos” go away and resort to old fashioned methods of feeling better.

And here is a prescription for the big drug makers. Instead of spitting out new pain killers, hair replacement pills and anti-depressants – how about devoting that time effort, and money to finding a cure for cancer, muscular dystrophy and AIDS – now that would be a prescription for a better world.