“Online gambling is the heroin of our time.”

I heard a woman on the E! THS Investigates special say this. The special was about the positive and negative values of the internet. Because it was E!, they tried to make it all sound as interesting and scandalous as possible. This woman talked about how she was addicted to online gambling and how it ruined her life. The story was kind of boring, she pissed all her family’s money away and now she feels bad about it, but then she dropped this little gem into the interview.

My question was this: isn’t heroin the heroin of our time? It’s not like heroin suddenly disappeared and now people are addicted to online gambling instead. You don’t see grunge musicians nodding out after a night of online gambling. Nicole Richie isn’t getting arrested for posession of online gambling materials. Heroin is still very much around and I refuse to think that online gambling is somehow on the same level.