The phrase chipping a drug was used back in the 1970s by psychologists and psychiatrists. Chipping a drug means occasionally using it, or rarely using it, but also being able to walk away from it without withdrawal or pain for months, or even years.

I read in Science News magazine a report which stated that large percentages of people could chip marijuana, it also stated that medium percentages of people could chip alcohol, heroin, even cocaine. The article also stated that very few people, less than 5% could chip tobacco.

Now I want you to imagine a drug that less than 4% of Americans could chip without feeling some pain. Such a drug by definition could very well be the most powerfully addictive drug ever created by man.

This drug would be capable of stabilizing a person's mood. This drug might even be able to alter a person's brain waves. Just imagine a person on this drug could attain a mental state where they could leave the boredom and pain of daily life behind. , it would alter their neurons in their brain, and it would make them believe that they weren't addicted, similar to alcohol. In fact they would think the use of this drug is preference.

You know that many alcoholics claim to be social drinkers; well the user of this drug would claim that he could stop using it at any time. But in reality, a user would not even consider having this drug absent from their lives.

This drug could be more tempting than opium. It could be more effective, in influencing behavior, than alcohol or marijuana. It would probably be used more times a day than tobacco.

America's most menacing, and invasive drug is television.

Yes, this flickering box takes hours away from our daily lives. Many of us rely on this flickering box for a greater part of our information. We rely on it for our news, to tell us what shape the world is in, to enlighten us on what we should buy, and what truth is.

Our populace wakes up to this drug, we go to sleep with this drug turned on, and we take it at any time we can, during the day. Many Americans even use this drug with their meals, do you watch Television whenyou are eating?.

What I would like to introduce here is the effects of this drug on our children. The relationship television, video game, and movie violence has on our children.

As you may recall, in 1998 the United States dealt with many instances of classmates shooting classmates. One of the common denominators was violence on television, violence in movies, and violent video games. So why is this happening? What are our children becoming?

A report written by a Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman a psychologist, and, "expert in killing", according to an article I read, explained in his article, what violent video games and television are doing to our children. He stated that, violent video games are so effective in training to kill a person, so economical, that the military have begun to use them. He also stated that the Army uses a game to train its military, manufactured by Nintendo.

In his report Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman stated that human beings have a powerful resistance to killing their own kind. Now here's an interesting fact, up until the Vietnam War about 80% of our soldiers on the front lines would actually never fire at the enemy (meaning, less than 20% of soldiers would actually fire at the enemy) they would fire in that direction but never directly at them to kill them. But with the training of the US military, using video games, the military increased that number from 20% to 90% in the Vietnam War. In his report Lieutenant Colonel Grossman said "we have scientifically overcame the soldiers resistance to killing"

Here's something to think about. Did you know that up until the age of six or seven our children cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality? That's a fact. And if you question that statement, think about this, at what time in our children's lives did they stop believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I think you will agree that they were atleast seven years old and probably older. So what kind of effect is television having on our children? Well, a study I read, conducted by The Indiana University School of Medicine, stated that the pre-frontal cortex of the brain is the part of the brain that is responsible for thinking, learning, and reasoning. They found that, this part of the brain shuts down when watching television.

Now let us compile what we have just discoveredthus far. First, the military uses a Nintendo like game, to provide a tool to teach our soldiers to kill. This tool is amazingly similar to the very same video games, most children play at home. We also now know that, television shuts down the child's ability to think, learn, and reason.

So what does that add up to? It almost sounds like a brainwashing of our children, into becoming trained killers.

You see violent video games are the mental equivalent of putting an assault rifle in the hands of every child. We are literally allowing them to sit and mindlessly kill countless thousands of humans with no repercussions and no ramifications for their actions. All while, the reasoning, learning and thinking portion of the brain is shut down. Are we teaching skills and concepts that transfer immediately any time a child gets a weapon in their hands? Do the 1998 shootings almost make sense now? Not that any killing makes sense.

You must understand something to get the full grasp of the concept. Television is passive, meaning our children sit in front of a television, on a couch and stare. But if we take it one notch further, and we put a weapon in the child's hand or a trigger, if you will, and allow him or her, to shoot and kill humans for hours on end, are we literally not teaching our children to kill? You be the judge.

In the 1980s the National Institute of Mental Health looked at 2500 scientific studies on the impact of violence on television. They said "the debate is over" movie and TV violence is tremendously harmful.

Fact: The average American child will watch 100,000 acts of television violence, including 8000 depictions of murder, by the time he or she is 13 years old, or approximately reaches the sixth grade.

In another study the University of Michigan concluded, that watching violence on television is the single factor most closely associated with aggressive behavior. They said it was more associated with aggressive behavior, then poverty, race, or parental behavior. In another study the University of Pennsylvania found about 20 violent acts each hour on children's television. Children's television! They concluded that, children that watched that much violence think the world is a mean and dangerous place.

One more point I would like to make. In India before the introduction of violent television, the crime rate was 2.9 per hundred thousand people. A study was conducted from 1983 to 1998 regarding the introduction of television violence to India, in this 15 year period. The results were conclusive; the crime rate went to 4.6 per hundred thousand people in this 15 year period. This is nearly double. Not only that, but the American Medical Association stated in 1992, that just about anywhere in the world television appears, after 15 years, the crime rate doubles.

So what does this all equate to in America? Well, think about this, 10,000 murders a year, 70,000 rapes a year, 700,000 of assaults a year, would not have occurred if not for the influence of violent television. Do you realize we're not even talking about violent video games yet in those numbers?

So what can we do as a society to help heal this problem? I think one thing we need, is to create an environment where we say "This Is Sick". And we might consider passing a law that point-and-shoot videogames are for adults only. You must understand that when we make laws, we're indicating to society, our moral outrage. Having such laws, would make businesses that sell and manufacture videogames incredibly vulnerable to lawsuits. One thing that is already happening is the parental control of television sets. This technology is now readily available. This may not be the perfect solution, but it's a start. You see, our children's future, and lives are at stake. It's time for a change.

Robert Birmingham is founder of Http://www.byebyeitguy.com