When it comes to pornography, the U.S. Senate didn't get an eyeful last Thursday, but it certainly got an earful. Comparing an addiction to pornography to an addiction to heroin, researchers said the time has come to move on the dangers of obscenity.

The porn industry is a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Reputable companies have tentacles that reach into it. Reputable people pay enormous amounts for it.

And reputable reputations are being destroyed.

Stamping it out is not an option. Peddling pornography is likely the second oldest profession. It will never go away.

However, it can be treated not simply as a nuisance but as a true public health issue. And there are statistics to back up the claim.

According to researchers at the sexual program of the University of Pennsylvania, pornography's effects on the brain mirror the effects of heroin and crack cocaine. Other studies show that pornography leads to callousness, the erosion of values and limited sexual satisfaction.

Years ago, the risk of discovery kept most people away from pornography. Being seen leaving a downtown X-rated movie theater was not good for the career, or the marriage. Even "brown bag" mail deliveries came with an element of danger. But today, with the Internet piping graphic sexual images into homes, offices, libraries and schools, the easily titillated can take advantage of porn without much fear of exposure.

Shaming people into avoiding it seems to be less and less of an option today. And the fact many images are considered "free speech" complicates the matter.

The best recourse is to expand studies into the ills of pornography — as was done with cigarettes and alcohol — and show that the damage to society is real and pervasive. Then restrictions in the name of public health could be applied and the ubiquitous nature of pornography stemmed.

Preliminary studies have already shown the dangers.

Common sense says pornography undermines the best of human nature.

Now science needs to step in, examine the data, and give lawmakers the ammunition they need to undercut the glut of smut. As suggested at the congressional hearing, a good place to begin is with the pornography that crops up at crack houses and the scenes of other crimes.

The police should gather it. Experts should catalogue it.

Then society should step in and stomp on it.