Overheard Starbuck

"Isn't it strange how the recent murders of women by their boyfriends or husbands resemble the drug-crazed killings of the hippies and underclasses popularized in true crime stories?"
---"That wrestler's murder-suicide was blamed on steroids."
"A professional wrestler on drugs? Say it ain't so. ...Considering steroids side-effects it's incredible that so few wrestlers are killers."
---What about the others?"
"Why did they snap?"
---"I kinda get it when druggies go nuts."
It's some kind of explanation anyway. I prefer bad genes or childhood head injuries. ..You're assuming the others weren't taking drugs?"
---"Wouldn't the news've reported it?"
"I don't know, maybe they're better stories without mentioning drugs?"
--"What if more then a few of these killers were prescribed one of the new PTSD drugs that treat anxiety by helping soldiers forget about the women and children they killed or the carnage they witnessed? Something that's designed to shade damaged psyches from the glare of blame, guilt, self-recrimination and the fear of nothing but more of the same tomorrow?"
"I like it when you go clinical."
---"Shut up.--For individuals with sociopathic tendencies these new drugs might exacerbate their already exaggerated sense of themselves as the source of light and value. There're the killings --horrible outbursts of uncontrollable anger--that're thanks to the meds instantly remembered as necessary and right. As just another event undercontrol and required? 'So what's next on today's to-do list?'"
"It's not drug abuse, if drugs with few obvious side-effects are taken by millions of Americans for depression, anxiety and sleeplessness? But steroids with their limited market appeal and grotesque side-effects can't help but be abused?"
---"Steroid monsters versus paxil's napping pussycats, what looks more like drug abuse to you?"

"It's a shame opiates are so cheap."
---"It's a shame opiates are so illegal."
"Yeah like heroin addicts don't get anxious and go nuts?"
---"Not if they have the drugs they need."