I was also a stupid teenager told that this was my only way to avoid flipping burgers for the rest of my life, so I signed up for student loans.
Then in 2010 Obama overhauled the system to cut out the shitty private industry side of things, but gave no relief to people like me already locked into that system. Made it real fun when Biden teased loan forgiveness and I found out I wouldn't even be eligible.
But I've been paying my loans. I did AmeriCorps so I could afford to do so. I reckon I've paid more than the entire cost of my schooling by now, but that doesn't matter because interest go brrrrrr.
The whole student loan system is unconscionable.
There's a local corner store here that had a big banner advertising that they sold this stuff. Had to look up what it was.
Then last time I drove by they changed it from "We sell Galaxy Gas!" to "We sell 7-Hydroxymitragynine!"
I looked that up and apparently it's some super concentrated kratom extract and a bunch of the google results were warning that it was basically just morphine. Which sounds pretty fucked up.
But also it's extremely easy to get fentanyl here, so maybe it's harm reduction in a sense? But selling it so openly, where anyone who drives along this major road will know you are dealing...
Just like, I remember when I was younger buying weird drugs from corner stores, they at least had to wink wink nudge nudge pretend that they weren't just drug dealers.