opinion@dailylobo.com
An increasing number of shooting rampages are being committed by individuals under the influence of or withdrawing from prescription drugs that are known to cause mania, psychosis and even homicide in some patients.
Colorado authorities confirmed James Holmes had received psychiatric care at the University of Colorado for undisclosed issues before donning combat gear and allegedly opening fire inside a packed movie theater on July 20 in Aurora, Colo. It seems likely he was given some kind of prescription medication as part of his treatment. Who knows what cocktail of drugs Holmes was on when he committed his horrible crime? It will be interesting to see if any of this comes out in court. We’ll probably never find out.
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza was on some kind of medication during his short life, his family members said. They admitted Lanza was being treated for symptoms related to autism. It’s logical to assume he was taking something for anxiety or depression as well. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what other symptoms he was being treated for when he gunned down 26 people and his mother.
Prescriptions for antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs have risen sharply over the past 20 years, especially among young people. But many so-called antidepressants and anti-anxiety remedies can have serious side effects. Antidepressants are not a miracle cure. They’re certainly not going to help everybody. The New England Journal of Medicine reported 25 to 50 percent of college students who seek counseling for depression are already taking antidepressants.
Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors increase levels of serotonin circulating in the brain. SSRIs, such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, have the potential for serious side effects, including suicidal thoughts and restlessness.
I speak from my personal experiences and those of my family and friends when I say these drugs don’t necessarily work for everyone. Sometimes they can make the problem worse. On the other hand, a lot of folks I know swear by them and claim that antidepressants have positively transformed their lives. I have no argument with these people whatsoever. I’m all for the proper use of drugs. Heck, my daddy was a pharmacist. I certainly don’t believe you are “taking the easy way out” or “numbing yourself” if medication works for you.
People react skeptically when I tell them about my insomnia; if only I did yoga, ate better or took a healthier approach to life, I wouldn’t need to contaminate my body with toxic drugs, they say.
My intent is not to make sweeping generalizations that antidepressants are bad. I encourage everybody to get all the help they need.
My gripe is with the medical professionals who are too lazy or negligent to do their own research into the potentially hazardous side effects of these drugs, and their willingness to prescribe them to virtually anyone who shows up in their office with the mildest case of depression. A lot of doctors are nothing more than glorified drug reps.
Eric Harris was reportedly taking the antidepressant Luvox at the time he and Dylan Klebold opened fire at Columbine High School. They killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before killing themselves.
It’s been 14 years since that shooting rampage in Columbine, Colo. Since then, millions more young people have been legally prescribed all kinds of potentially harmful drugs. I think we are just now beginning to see some of the consequences. I’ve heard stories of children as young as 4 years old being prescribed hard drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall.
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Am I the only concerned citizen who wants to know how many and what kind of legal drugs the shooters were on when they killed all those people? The mainstream media’s silence on this matter is deafening. Why is it such a taboo subject? The mental state of the killers is at the center of the gun control debate. Prescription drugs are highly relevant to this discussion.
Luvox, Paxil, Zoloft, etc., are all SSRIs. FDA warnings for these medications include anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, mania and psychosis. A survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed antidepressants are the third most prescribed drugs in America. Antidepressants are also the most commonly prescribed drugs among college students.
Anti-anxiety pills, such as Valium and Nembutal, were used effectively for many years, but until the arrival of new drugs such as Prozac, they weren’t nearly as popular, due to their side effects.
Considering the sorry state of mental health services in America today, it’s a miracle we don’t have more mass shootings. Mental health is clearly a serious issue for millions of Americans. In an era of dwindling resources, the problem has been put on the back burner for way too long.
Lack of access to mental health care is a legitimate concern in the U.S., but so is the quality of the care given to patients who are actually able to afford and receive help for mental conditions, like Holmes and Lanza, for instance.
The suicide rate among military personnel has reached epidemic proportions. Incredibly, suicides outstripped the number of combat deaths in Afghanistan for the first time in 2012. Antidepressants and antipsychotics are all widely used in the military, and not just to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
The huge increase in military suicides and the overall suicide and homicide rate in the general population can arguably be attributed to the advent of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, which began in the mid-1980s. Drugs such as Prozac and Zoloft weren’t even available until the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. In the last two decades, the U.S. has seen a proliferation of prescription drug use and abuse. This situation is directly related to the irresponsible advertising and political lobbying efforts of the pharmaceutical conglomerates, collectively known as Big Pharma.
Big Pharma includes some of the largest corporations in America: Pfizer, Roche, Merck and Eli Lilly. It’s one of the biggest lobbying groups in D.C. Many politicians and prominent military psychiatrists are consultants to Big Pharma, shamelessly endorsing the drugs pharmaceutical companies pay them to promote.
Big Pharma spends billions of dollars every year on direct-to-consumer marketing, and they’ve turned their products into household names: Viagra, Xanax, Lunesta, Ambien, Lipitor, etc. Big Pharma actually spends more on advertising campaigns and marketing than they do on research and development of new products — nearly twice as much, according to a study by Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin published in 2008.
The U.S. and New Zealand are the only nations that allow direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical companies. Big Pharma spent about $60 billion on marketing in 2011. Of that, $14 billion was spent on marketing to doctors who write the prescriptions, and $4 billion was spent on direct-to-consumer advertising. Americans are so used to taking psychoactive drugs for minor problems that we don’t even think about it anymore. Perhaps we should.
Our love affair with prescription medications is shifting the focus of the U.S. health care system away from treating and curing into numbing and drugging. It’s really time for us to “Just Say No” to drugs.
