Tony Brewer

I love cheese steak sandwiches. I’ve loved them ever since I was a teenager in high school. My friends and I used to go down to the local pizzeria and order cheese steak sandwiches and fries and a soda. We’d all sit at a booth and have a good time laughing and joking and enjoying the food. A few years ago that pizzeria closed down, and I’ve had a hard time finding a place that makes the sandwiches as well as that place did. I don’t know what kind of cheese that place used – and that was probably the secret! I’m sure that it had onions in it, which I love, but no peppers (although I like peppers too!)

So I’ve been experimenting at home trying to make our own cheese steak sandwiches. I’ve come pretty close, but there’s still something missing. I guess I need to experiment with different cheeses. I’ve tried looking up the “right” recipe on the Internet, and haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to try all the different ones.

Addiction is a strange word.  It has a social stigma to it that upsets many people.  I know a lot of people that have relatives that have addiction problems but refuse to call it that.  They prefer to sugar-coat it and call it a “drinking problem” or a “drug problem.”  Some people are addicted to the medicines that their own doctor has prescribed to them, and call it a “tolerance problem.”  But addiction is addiction – wasn’t it Shakespeare’s Juliet who said “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  And then there is the famous quote recently used by Barack Obama – “you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.”

Addiction is addiction, whether a person is taking medicines prescribed by a doctor for a genuine medical problem, or whether the person is buying illegal drugs off of the street, or if the person is doing “legal” addictive things such as smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.  Heck, I’m addicted to caffeine!  It’s not illegal, and it doesn’t cause any kind of social problem, but if I don’t get my cup of tea in the morning I get a really bad caffeine withdrawal headache!

Addiction however can be a serious problem in many people’s lives.  Addiction to illegal drugs or alcohol can ruin a person’s life, and the lives of the people around them.  Fortunately there are resources over the Internet at treatment-centers.net to help people who are struggling with these issues to find the treatment centers that they need – whether it is drub rehab, or alcohol rehab, or even help with eating disorders.

I was just reading on the stateline.org website that this election is going to be holding questions in a few states about legalizing medical marijuana. The article was talking about how even if and when states decriminalize it that it is still federally illegal and that people can be “busted” by the federal agents even if the state says it is legal. It was talking about a case in California where a man was selling medical marijuana and even paying taxes on the income (since it was legalized in California) but was “busted” by the feds anyway and is facing up to 85 years in jail!  This is a really sad story – I think that if the states are going to legalize it then the federal government should step back and adopt a hands off policy.