Cool, Clear Water: Just Because You’re Not On Prescription Pills Doesn’t Mean You’re Not Taking Them
ADAM MICHAEL LUEBKE
An impressive range of pharmaceutical drugs found in our nation’s water supplies is old news. In fact, I wrote about it in an article called NYC’s water cafe- stripping the fluoride, chlorine, and sex hormones from H2O. How satisfying a fresh, truly filtered glass of water sounds. But how much would you pay for it?
The best course of action would be to stop eating so much food, stop drinking coffee, and then surviving on far less water. However, our American lifestyles require us to guzzle many glasses a day.
As a consistent coffee drinker, I swallow a lot of water. But what else am I swallowing? Well, as it turns out, I’m dosing myself with the un-absorbed remnants of everybody else’s prescription pills. So, officially, I don’t have any prescriptions, but that doesn’t mean I’m not on at least half a dozen of them. Here’s a friendly overview:
A vast array of pharmaceuticals – including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones – have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
It’s no wonder I’ve been in a stupor lately, and am only beginning to claw my way out of that dirty black hole. I’d been almost dizzy and lethargic to the point I could hardly feed myself. But I couldn’t figure out why? I’d been eating healthy as usual — rice, vegetables, fruit, and the typical supplements such as iron and Vitamin B, which is a must for vegetarians. Yet I’ve been languishing for weeks.
Perhaps there was a surge of anti-depressants mixed with stiff antibiotics and food preservatives in the water system. It takes the human body a few weeks to process that garbage.
And before you cock your eyebrow and tell me those drugs are only found in parts per billion or trillion, so they don’t mean anything, I’ll tell you I drink eight or more tall glasses of water a day (as is recommended). Sooner or later, grandma’s heart medicine, your priest’s anti-inflammatory pill, and the cocktail of anti-depressants being religiously swallowed by a hundred million Americans every day, adds up.
It’s no wonder I’ve been feeling tranquilized. Especially in Los Angeles. If more folks would flush their blow down the can, maybe the deadening effects of mood stabilizers and anti-convulsants would equal out.
I’m not a naturally hopped-up person, so all these yahoos who take pills so they can float through life like moderate goddamn human butterflies and never experience the natural highs and lows of living, and learn to deal with that through inner exploration and awareness, end up pooping their happy-go-lucky essence into the water stream so we can all pour it down our throats.
If I knew the right business people in this city, I could make a blueprint for a machine to sift out all the pharmaceutical trace materials and haul them to a safe storage area to dry. It would be like panning for flecks of gold. We’d end up with a multicolored pile of slush.
With the right business mindset and a few heavy investments, we could build a machine to roll this raw pharmaceutical waste into a new kamikaze pill that is one-hundredth sex hormone, one-tenth anti-depressant, one-fiftieth anti-inflammatory, one-tenth anti-anxiety, one-twenty-fifth anti-seizure, one-twentieth estrogen, an unmeasured smattering of testosterone, and one-fiftieth sunscreen.
I’d sell it at clubs and around town for a couple bucks a pill. “It’s cheap, it’s real, and it’ll probably mellow you out and relax your sphincter,” the instructions will say. “There’s a slight chance you’ll suffer nausea, heart palpitations, dizziness, diarrhea, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, aggressive tendencies, have an Adam Lanza moment, or maybe even nothing at all.”
That’s the beauty of it. Each pill is rolled from a bulk of raw secondhand pharmaceutical material.
Or, we could can the shit and call it PharmaSlush. It’s really just tap water, but with a twist of reality. Sell it for a couple dollars a can. That’s how billion dollar industries begin.
Nutrition Facts
(Percentage of daily values based on a 2,000-calorie diet)
Anti-depressant 25%
Anti-inflammatory 15%
Anti-seizure 10%
Estrogen 20%
Testosterone 15%
Sunscreen, various elements 5%
Phthalates 10%
Anti-bacterial 50%
Other mood stabilizers 20%
[photo by Justin Taylor]
Boy, my hormones have been on overdrive since I arrived in Chicago. They didn’t mellow out until I bought a Brita filter and started using ItWorks ‘Greens’ for detox.
I’m thinking of upgrading from a Brita filter to a heavy duty job that will scrub the water molecules cleaner than they’ve ever been since the days the Indians roamed North America.
I’ve heard the ItWorks line is good for health and wellness. Email me more information if you would be so kind.
I have found I still can drink coffee and tea while reducing my water intake. The trick is drinking half cups and drinking them slow to make it last longer.