The Term Paper - Read at Your Own Risk

*WARNING* The following blog is boring and yawn-evoking...do not read before morning coffee. In fact, the easily distracted and/or impatiant should give this one a miss.

If I told you the amount of exercise I get every day over here, it would send you into shock. Most of you know how I feel about exercise, and walking upstairs to sit at my computer is about the only time my heart-rate goes above normal. It’s not that I shun exercise, it’s just there isn’t much call for it in my lifestyle. I walk 10 paces to my car...I sit at a job behind a desk...the shops are to far to make the trek by foot... Like most people in America, I am a creature of sitting. 1950's Suburbia fought long and hard for the Battle of a Leisurely Lifestyle, so who am I to render their cause meaningless?

But here - it’s all walking and trudging up and down steps carrying half a ton of bags filled with water bottles and laundry detergent. And it’s all walking two miles to grocery stores that sell more than one brand of over-priced peanut butter. And it’s all been hell on my body. I have aches in areas I didn’t know existed. It doesn’t stop me from walking, but it makes the going a little slower. So, on my way to do the weekly laundry today, I popped into the local pharmacy to buy the strongest concoction of chemical relief they could sell me.

There wasn’t much, but at least I recognized some of the drugs. Motrin. Tylenol. Bayer. That was about it. Except...there was a bluish-silvery package I had never seen before. Syndol. Hmmm...hadn’t I seen a commercial for that during Doctor Who the other night? Yes, I’m sure I had. Something about a “muscle relaxer” or “magical muscle fixer.” (It was late. I was tired.) “Why not,” I thought. “Worth a shot.” So, I bought a small packet and continued on to the laundrette.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to drag my unmentionables (my “smalls”) to do a public wash, and even though I have made the journey twice since I’ve been here, I forget how long a wash actually takes. It’s not like I can pop back on the sofa between the wash and the rinse cycles...I have to sit on a pinchy wooden bench and wait. And I always forget to bring a book.

Today, however, I had a few minutes of reading material in the form of drug interaction warnings and labeled ingredients. I retrieved the package from my pocket and settled in for a good ten to fifteen minutes of reading. If I was very thorough and sounded out every ingredient phonetically in my head, I might even be able to stretch it to twenty.

I got three ingredients in and my mouth dropped open in shock.

In my own Seth McFarland way, I have reached the point to this blog. (Xander is probably the only person who will get that allusion.) This medicine, this over-the-counter medicine that cost 2.25, contains codeine. Codeine. I was stunned. Codeine is only available in prescription form in the US, and here it’s sold by apathetic 17-year-old kids over the counter.

All of this started me thinking about the morality dilemma of being in another country. It is illegal to take Codeine without a prescription in America...and legally I’m an American. But does that mean I have to follow the moral code of America while I’m here as well? If I was in America, it would be morally wrong for me to take Codeine without a prescription because it’s against the law. You should never break The Law. That’s what the moral majority says.

Can my ethics and morality can change simply because I change my location? Does that mean morals and ethics based on law? What is illegal in one place is not necessarily illegal in another place. If ethics and morals are based on law, then does that mean we base our moral codes and honor on the whims of politicians and judges? If so, what does that say about our morals and ethics?

For example, it is illegal to smoke marijuana in the US and there is little argument that the moral majority of Americans view smoking it as morally and ethically wrong. But if I was in Amsterdam, where smoking marijuana is legal, does that mean it is no longer morally wrong to smoke it? It would not be illegal, and I would not be breaking any laws. If I grew up in Amsterdam, I would grow up with the ethics that it was completely acceptable to use marijuana, and I would not feel any moral pangs by lighting up.

To take another example - during Prohibition in America’s 1930's it was considered distinctly “Un-American” and a moral sin to have so much as a sip of beer, and anyone who did so was considered an immoral heathen who was destroying the very fabric of American Life. That was soon replaced with the complete acceptance of alcohol, and the 1970's made drinking an art form. It was no longer morally unacceptable...but for a brief moment in time it was. The only difference between moral and immoral drinking was The Law.

There are so many examples - in America it is considered immoral and unethical to treat animals with cruelty, but in certain Asian countries beating a dog is a Man’s legal and moral right. At the turn of the century Heroin was sold by mail-order catalogue targeting tired housewives who needed “a lift” (Sears used to sell a reusable syringe in a stunning color-coordinated box). Mere decades ago large companies were dumping toxic matter into lakes and streams without raising moral or legal objections from anyone but the silly “tree-huggers”. Millions died in 1940's Germany because the government told its Country that it was the ethical thing to do.

So, does that mean it those people are free from moral and ethical conscience simply because The Law was on their side?

This has been, I’m sure, an argument batted around by Sociology students for generations...but this is the first time I’ve ever really noticed the difference. We take for granted the moral guidelines instilled in us by our parents, and if that morality changes then we change our morality and ethics. We change them without thought...we condemn individuals who acted on accepted moral guidelines of the past...we judge others based on the codes instilled in them by their upbringing and culture...we support wars because our government tells us it’s the moral and ethical thing to do....

Is it ethically or morally wrong for me to take this Codeine without a prescription?

Probably...but my back is killing me so I’m popping one as soon as I close this window.

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Random Fact - Asking for a fork with your take-away chips stops all conversation at the chippery.

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