LOS ANGELES, CA- There was a time not so very long ago when salaries were high and prices were low, a golden era of excess and general contentment. With our jobs and our nation seemingly secure, we eschewed the lessons of the late 1970's and indulged in the depraved pleasure of over-sized vehicles. We experimented at first, just a taste, but soon found ourselves addicted to the high-riding prestigemobiles along with the gasoline they seemed to consume so ravenously. But now with gas prices rising to all time highs, a hollow-eyed nation wanders the streets from one corner pusher to another looking for a cheap score.

Reports from several major cities indicate that desperate motorists are turning to petty crime, robbing the elderly, identity theft, even raiding their own children's college funds in order to finance their gasoline habits.

Sharon Neetles, a 44-year-old mother with a seven gallon per day habit, says she turned to part-time prostitution in order to keep her 2003 Honda Pilot topped off.

"I know it's wrong and everything, but I've got to get the kids to soccer practice somehow," said Neetles. "Sell the SUV? No, I like sitting way up there and looking down on the traffic around me. If it takes going down on some stranger to get up high, well, that's just what I have to do."

Convicted corporate swindler Dewey Cheetham recently explained that most of his company's illegal doings were motivated entirely by his voracious hunger for gasoline. In an effort to out-SUV his SUV-driving neighbors, Cheetham kept buying bigger and bigger trucks until finally he had engineers at AM General custom build a Hummer made entirely of other full-sized Hummers. A bit awkward to drive since it took up four lanes of traffic every time he took it out on the highway, Cheetham says he didn't see the folly of it at the time.

"By the time I was at my lowest I was getting .25 miles per gallon, a figure I would repeat to anyone who would listen," said Cheetham. "I was filling up three times a day. I knew I was sick but I didn't know where to turn for help."

Cheetham says he is slowly adjusting to his stationary lifestyle, but not everyone can afford a posh federal prison as a rehabilitation program.

Experts advise gas-addicted to join a 12-step recovery group or even go cold turkey and trade in their four-wheeled behemoths for something smaller and lower- neither of which they actually expect consumers to do.

Gasoline addiction appears to be a fairly recent phenomenon, so how did we end up with this lust for petroleum? Internet-based conspiracy theorists are claiming that SUV's and large trucks were introduced into suburban neighborhoods by Al-Qaeda believing that gas-dependent Americans would destroy themselves, and so far the theory appears to be correct.

Recent days have seen pump riots, gasoline withdrawal, and neighbors shooting neighbors in cold blood over alleged siphoning incidents. In Topeka, Kansas, witnesses reported seeing a grandmother holding an empty gas can by the side of the highway with a sign that read "will commit unnatural act for premium unleaded."

In light of the current social unraveling, public officials and concerned citizens are renewing the call for more legal controls on the source of the crisis.

That task might prove more difficult than lawmakers estimate. Authorities say they will never be able to remove all the illicit fuel from the streets. If they push down on one seller or supplier, another will pop up as gasoline flows into the US from oil fields and refineries in the Middle East and South America- with the full knowledge and consent of the host governments.

In addition, critics charge that an outright ban on the substance could cause more problems than it stands to solve. Criminalize gasoline, they say, and only criminals will drive. Indeed, representatives from the local FPO have raised the concern that, without access to gasoline-powered vehicles, they will have a very difficult time catching offenders.