10 Times Star Trek Depicted Addiction
Sometimes exploring the final frontier exposed Star Trek's protagonists to new forms of addiction.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, addiction is a chronic condition involving the persistent and intense urge to use substances or engage in behavior despite negative or harmful consequences. It can affect a person's mental and physical health, career, and relationships. Addiction is an all too common social ill in the 21st century that affects people of all ages, races, and socioeconomic statuses.
Although the future depicted in Star Trek is a utopia compared to our own time, it's not a utopia for the people living there. The franchise has depicted some present-day social issues, such as addiction, persisting into the space age future.
One of the unforeseen consequences of living in a technologically advanced, space-faring culture, is exposure to brand-new and novel forms of addiction including exotic chemicals, new forms of technology, and alien experiences.
Besides drugs, Star Trek characters have been addicted to time on the holodeck, minerals, devices, other dimensions, their own emotions, and even alien beings. However, even if the mechanism is different, the results, such as damage to one's health and relationships, are unfortunately the same. Here are ten times Star Trek has explored the final frontier of addiction.
10. Symbiosis
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Symbiosis first aired in April 1988, at the height of the American "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign.
While studying unusual solar activity, the Enterprise rescues the crew of a doomed freighter. During the rescue, they seem more concerned with the cargo than their lives.
After the rescue, the freighter's crew explains that their cargo is a medication called felicium. Long ago, the Brekkians began supplying their neighbors, the Ornarans, with this costly drug to treat a plague.
The Enterprise crew discovers that by the 24th century, the felicium, an addictive narcotic, had cured the plague but because of withdrawal symptoms, the Ornarans believed they were still sick. The Bekkians, whose economy depended on the felicium trade, hid the truth and continued supplying the drug.
What could have been a powerful episode about the exploitative relationship between drug dealers and addicts is let down by the writer's waste of Tasha Yar.
Tasha was a recovering drug addict who grew up on a failed Earth colony where crime, poverty, and drug abuse ran rampant. She should have been the first to warn Picard about the Ornarans being addicts. The moral debate between Dr. Crusher and Picard would have also been more powerful if Tasha had been involved.
Instead, the writers relegated Tasha and her experiences to warning Wesley about the dangers of drug abuse in a heavy-handed scene that feels more like a P.S.A. than part of the drama.