Doughnuts Defeating Poverty - NYTimes.com.

All this hints at an uncomfortable truth: The suffering associated with poverty is sometimes caused not only by low incomes but also by self-destructive pathologies. In central Kenya, a recently published government study found that men, on average, spent more of their salaries on alcohol than on food.

It’s a vicious circle: despair leads people to self-medicate in ways that compound the despair.

Something to think about in a week in which we sing the praises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Why do we tolerate a system whose structures plunge some – many – people into situations which quite rationally lead them to self-medicate?

Our country confronted this 100 years ago, and went through a period of prohibition. It didn’t solve the underlying problem.

Go to the root of the problem. Stop hacking at the leaves. Let’s go fix the problem that causes the despair!