A San Diego company is exploring a drug to treat compulsive gambling. The wisdom of trying to find a pill that corrects each and every mental deficiency notwithstanding, I found the functioning of the drug a bit troubling; the pill hinders the pleasure the gambler feels by blocking dopamine, the chemical agent by which the brain feels pleasure. So one might be cured of an addiction, with the minor side effect of lack of pleasure. It seems like "an inability to feel pleasure" is no trivial side effect, but then again, watching the ads on television, for products which cause explosive diarrhea, bowel spasms, four-hour erections, and even lymphoma, perhaps "an inability to ever truly know joy again" isn't so bad.