Stephen Jenkins, Nostradamus of the '90s

Crystal meth is much in the news these days: documentaries on PBS, extravagant and on-going reportage by some of the nation’s top newspapers, and several bills pending in congress. It’s the scourge of the new millennium, and it took us all by surprise. Right?

Actually, it’s been on our cultural radar (at least among those of us who actually listen to the lyrics of commercial radio: why we do that is still up in the air) for almost a decade. It was way, waaaay back in 1997 when diminutively-bearded chanteur Stephen Jenkins (Third Eye Blind) warned us all in their break-out hit Semi-Charmed Life:

Doing crystal meth
will lift you up until you break
it won’t stop

I took the hit that I was given
And I bumped again
And I bumped again.

How could our nation’s poor and our nation’s club goers resist what even leather-jacket sporting 90s soft-rockers were powerless against? Social Scientists would do well to examine the current Top 40 rotation to spot problems which might crop up in 2017. . . will Jesus really begin taking the wheel of hundreds of thousands of motorists? Will someone really take “what’s left” of Nick Lachey? Will someone finally rescue Rhianna and save her from Whitney Houston-style implosion, lalala lalala la-lalala-oh? We’ll just have to wait and see.