"Getting Real" is a science fiction short story written by Harry Turtledove and published in the March, 2009 edition of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
It takes place in a dystrophic Los Angeles in 2117 where the United States is no longer a world power but an "economic basket case" ever since China refused to renew its loans to the government a century earlier. Concurrently, a new technology called "Real" proves to be as addictive as any number of controlled substances, much to the detriment of the U.S. When a war breaks out, it proves disastrous for the U.S., in a broad parallel to the Opium Wars of the early 19th century.