There is a gaping hole in Jeff Jacoby's essay attributing economic inelastic demand for unhealthy consumer goods to human stubbornness ("The two faces of human stubbornness," Ideas, November 16). The missing filler for this hole is addiction.
Certainly, for cigarettes and liquor, the physiological dependency that characterizes these consumer products is a major factor making it hard for users to give them up even as their commercial suppliers ratchet up the price. Some users who have the good fortune of more recoverable brains may be able to translate knowledge and information about the harm done to them by these products into quitting them. But many more will not be able to do so without first ending their addiction to them.