WATERLOO, ONTARIO- The US Supreme Court refused to intervene in a lower court's patent infringement ruling against BlackBerry makers Research in Motion on Monday, signaling certain doom for the company and, more importantly, its popular wireless email network.

In all the brouhaha over the litigation, very little consideration has been paid to the sizable population of BlackBerry addicts among us, hollow-eyed ghouls with swollen thumbs and a strong physical dependency on sophisticated mobile messaging. While lawyers argue over the outcome, throngs of strung out BlackBerry users flood the streets in search of their next hit.

"I know it's a cliche to say I 'need' it, but I really do neeeed it, man," said 36-year-old Dean Tocks between furious fits of shaking and itching. "Somebody's messaging me right now. I can feel it in my veins! Can you hook me up? Can you?"

As the outage brings more junkies out into the open, it has become abundantly clear that this is no longer simply an isolated public health problem. Once clean business districts in cities like Dallas and St. Louis are now crawling with unsavory types willing to do whatever it takes to experience the joy of one more BlackBerry fix.

One businessman we spoke with offered to perform an unspeakable act involving a bottle opener and small mouth bass if we could furnish him with advanced text messaging services for just a short time. Asked how he felt about the addiction that has caused him to sink so low, the man merely shrugged. "Well, I'm a marketing executive," he said, "so I guess this isn't a whole lot different from my regular job."

After doing his act in exchange for half a hamburger and a ride to the bus terminal, he told us that he first experimented with BlackBerry after seeing a senior VP fiddling around with one five years ago. Having given into peer pressure, it took only one wireless PC sync and he was hooked for life. Before long he was swapping messages at a blistering clip, spending his days churning through his BlackBerry's menus and ignoring his work, family, and basic human needs.

Now that the network is down, he says he has lost his will to live and has, on several occasions, considered wiping his unit's memory without backing up.

The patent-holding company NTP now promises that if users can hold out for just a few months, they will have a whole new line of handhelds on the market by the second quarter of '06. Moreover, the firm hopes to improve on the original with a handful of innovative ideas like replacing the BlackBerry's tiny keyboard with voice or gesture input.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas, however, focus groups roundly rejected the new designs, complaining that the company had taken the product in the entirely the wrong direction. Rather than further abstraction from their handhelds, users say they want a closer, more direct relationship. On the suggestion page of the RIM website, they continually receive messages asking if the BlackBerry could come in a pill, patch or smokable format. In fact, according to unsubstantiated reports on the Internet, some addicts have gone so far as to inject the wireless-enabled device directly into their bloodstream in order to maximize their wireless connectivity.

While NTP struggles to find a way to meet the needs of this population of junkies they inherited in the wake of their lawsuit, addicts will have to find a way to overcome their dependency on their own. A specially-designed twelve-step program is currently in the works, but until then experts say that it might be helpful to replace BlackBerry with another all-consuming habit. Which they choose is up to them.

"I've narrowed it down to either compulsive hand-washing or heroin, and I just can't decide," said Tocks. "With one I can have really clean hands and with the other I get washboard abs. I mean, have you seen Iggy Pop? I'm not gay or anything, but that guy is hot. I've heard heroin's kinda spendy, though, so at the moment I'm leaning toward hand-washing. Honestly, I might end up doing both."