Amazingly thought provoking post Gandalf. If I might offer some ideas, perhaps the reason wild vegetables are rarely seen is because most modern vegetables have been bred for years specifically to be raised on farms and sprayed with pesticides and can no longer survive as well in the wild, plus, anything that grows without human attention grows smaller and more covertly... unless the human is going for that effect...
My mother is a doctor and from what I hear most people that claim chronic pain are just trying to score painkillers to get high, probably 80%, they train themselves to think that way so they don't fall into the habit of feeding addictions and don't feel bad about denying medication.
I love what you say about letting people speak, I couldn't have said it better. People that deny that right to others really need to re-evaluate whether they want to live in a free country.
Anything can be proved scientifically so I've been told, so I choose not to listen to anything I haven't experienced myself. This is part of the reason I smoked in the first place, I needed to know the truth whether it damaged me or not, it didn't.
I've never met anyone with chronic pain before, sounds like a nasty condition and I'll keep what you say in mind in the future.
As for corn syrup and stuff, I say keep it. There's lots of stuff that doesn't have it and it's easy enough to find if you pay attention but nothing beats pigging out on sugary unhealthy trash every once in a while . I do think that it's drawbacks should be common knowledge though.
I hate politics.
I love your posts. Hope I helped