If I had a dollar for each time I heard this, I'd probably be rich already. Since many things happen in business and life it's hard to be—much less see—everywhere at once. From my experience, even if you aren't directly involved, both the legal and illegal sectors will have an effect on you.
My grand mother was my best friend growing up. She baked cookies, fried food, even made home made ice cream, and spoiled the hell out of me on weekends. Then, she had open heart surgery when I was about 12 or 13. I believe it's called a quadruple bypass.
She had been diagnosed with some sort of heart disorder and the doctor simply told her to exercise more.
Thinking back upon my family's medical history, I really should know better than to indulge in cigarettes.
It's all about the marketing of a product.
I remember walking into the hospital that day and seeing my mother stressed. At the very least the food there was good. We went out to eat often in those days.
If I stop to think about it, while she was in the hospital, we were eating food that could put us there as well.
You know how kids are about McDonald's! They love the colorful packaging and the little toy included inside, and care little for the risks involved with what they're actually eating. It's all about the marketing of a product. Someone—anyone—will gladly purchase something if you make the wrapping and advertisement attractive enough. Your kids will beg you for it until you purchase it. If you're like thousands of other parents you just want to make them happy even if you are aware of the health risks. My mother is a health nut and provided healthy snacks throughout my child hood but we still ate at McDonald's often.
As children, we used to "smoke" candy cigarettes and pretend that pixie sticks were cocaine. ADHD was common and was actually believed to be a real diagnosis. It's since been written off as a farce.
Now that I think about it, the majority of creative children in urban neighborhoods didn't have much more to do than get into trouble. Tagging walls (graffiti) and other malicious activities were all of our favorites. We weren't taught our history(except for the half-assed job they did in February), how to balance check books or how to open a business. Basic math and history just weren't interesting or marketed that way.
At the time(pre-internet for you young bucks) Big Pharma didn't have quite as much propaganda against it and so parents fed their children pills chocked full of "medicine" predisposing them to meth addictions. I just recently had a friend of a friend pass who was a addict. Oddly enough we think his psych meds killed him. We're still waiting on an autopsy. His wife simply woke up next to him and realized he was dead. I had two other friends pass in an almost identical situation. And I can't say I never used drugs myself. Even, recently, I had one guy reminisce about a boatload of MDMA I had back-in-the-day.
Next time, I want to tell you a story of one particular instance.
Keep your eyes on them! Don't ever leave what you love!