The crew confronts a drug dependency between two neighbouring worlds.
The Enterprise rescues the crew of a stricken freighter and meets two peoples from neighboring worlds: the Ornarans, who are dependent on a drug called felicium, and the Brekkians, who supply it. The Brekkians claim that their medicine saves lives, but Dr. Crusher soon determines that the drug is addictive and the supposed illness is long gone.
Picard faces the Prime Directive again, as he cannot simply intervene to break up the arrangement. The episode is a blunt allegory about drug dependence and exploitation, and it is probably best remembered for its closing scene in which Tasha Yar talks to Wesley about the dangers of drugs. It was a very direct message for 1980s television.