Americas Collapse 1.4 The Mental Health Epidemic

Did your dog die? There is a pill for that. Your wife left you for the mailman? There is a pill for that as well. You didn’t get the promotion you wanted? We have a pill! Saddened or frustrated by financial problems? Having a bad week or month? Well dealing with your problems head on is no longer needed because… we have a pill for that!

Medicating Americans for mental illnesses has grown and spread like wildfire over the past decade and now 1 in 5 adults are now taking at least one psychiatric drug such as a anti psychotic, anti-anxiety or antidepressant, according to a report of pharmacy claims data.

A large and important find was a massive increase in the use of powerful anti-psychotic drugs over all ages as well as a large growth in adult use of drugs for ADD a condition usually diagnosed in childhood. From 2001 to 2010 psychiatric medicines in all adults grew by 22 percent. While most psychiatric drug use grew strongly antidepressant use in children and anxiety medication in the elderly declined mainly due to their dangerous side effects in those age brackets. In 2004 the FDA required a black box warning and finally acknowledged the on going side effect of suicidal thoughts that children and teens suffer from while taking antidepressants literally forcing them at times to end their lives. Yes, this stuff is that powerful.

Psychiatric medications are the most Widely prescribed and best selling drugs on the market. If anyone can find updated stats please share but as of 2010 Americans spent over 16 billion dollars on anti-psychotics to aid in treating bipolar, depression, schizophrenia, and another 11.6 billion on antidepressants and 7.2 billion to treat ADHD according to IMS health, a company that tracks prescription drug sales. Over 34 BILLION DOLLARS IN SALES in 2010 alone. Do you see what kind of money is being generated here?

Trillions of dollars over the course of a decade. Can you fathom trillions of dollars in sales? Our nations debt is being spent on psych meds. Which brings me to my next topic. If these pharmaceutical companies have a growing gold mine then it would be with in their best interest to align with Doctors and Health organizations to push their money making agenda.

Now these pharmaceutical companies spend over 5 billion annually to send drug sale representatives to doctor offices all over the country. And these sales reps keep files and files on physicians that include as much personal information as possible such as family members, clothing styles, taste in music and right down to sport team preference. Gifts such as all expense paid trips, sporting events and other compensations are not uncommon. Something very common is a fun dinner night. I know from experience. I could not count the times drug reps would take a old friend of mine and her entire nursing staff around the town for some very fine dining, late night benders and alcoholic and cocaine fueled wild nights. Maybe they didn’t provide the coke but I am sure they provided everything else. This is a fact I can personally prove. So if I read anything that contradicts what I am saying though the national media it really means nothing to me. All of these parties, dinners, bar tabs…all paid for courtesy of the drug reps. What do they want in return? Well they are drug reps trying to have a doctors office accept and include its medicine to be pushed. They want nothing else in return other than its Doctors to push their drugs for them. The nurses have great nights. The doctors receive season tickets in a luxury box to their favorite team and in return prescribe particular drugs to their mental health patients.

The NY times reported that psychiatrist in Vermont and Minnesota topped the charts of doctors on the receiving end of pharmaceutical company gifts that corresponds to the pushing of “growing use of atypicals [new antipsychotics] in children.” Between the years 2000 and 2005 payments from drug makers to Minnesota shrinks rose 6 times to 1.6 million as well as the number of anti psychotic prescriptions 9 times to children. Do you see a correlation? But what makes me sick to my stomach is that they are using our children’s brains to push their money making agenda. Which only brings me to my next problem with all of this… are psychiatric medicines causing more mental illness?

There was a interview of veteran investigating reporter and author of Mad in America Robert Whitaker. Here is a powerful statement of his:

The story that people with mental disorders have known chemical imbalances, that’s a lie. We don’t know that at all. It’s just something that they say to help sell the drugs and help sell the biological model of mental disorders.

He also states:

There’s a built-in economic incentive to define mental illness in as broad terms as possible, and to find ordinary, distressing emotions or behaviors that some people may not like and label them as mental illness.

Whitaker also mentions than one high level neuroscientist who concludes that psychoactive or psychotropic drugs actually create brain chemistry imbalances.

Have you ever looked at the side effects in drugs such as Risperdal, Haldol, Paxil, Ritalin and others? They are huge. Any real sense of relief is purely short term and placebo affected. The physical side effects are among diabetes, heart attacks and even sudden death. The mental side effects are many also including anxiety, insomnia, and violent behavior. The increased suicide rate among traumatized veterans of combat is directly linked to using psychiatric drugs. Look at some of the most notorious killers in America… most have psychiatric drug histories. As I have already mentioned above in proof we are drugging our children for the sake of making money. And we wonder why they are snapping more now than ever before. All doctors need to do in order to prescribe a psychiatric drug is have its patient fit a specific behavior profile. So did your dog die? Well you are showing extreme sadness. Here is pill for that. You may suffer some extreme side effects, if you feel suicidal after withdrawal you can just take a pill for that. Just don’t KILL yourself in the process or hurt any one during a violent side effect issued outburst.

So are these acts of violence happening because of mental health issues, or are they happening because of adverse effects of mental health drugs, usually during withdraw? We don’t know because we will never see the part of the autopsy on the killers that shows if they were in the middle of a psychotropic withdraw. It is said that most of the side effects surface when the user stops receiving the referenced medicine. But we can make educated guesses and read the circumstantial evidence as well as link together the coincidences. I would like to rely on good ol’ fashioned common sense. Alas the liberal and presidential thing to do right now is ban as many weapons as possible by going after the weapons these psychopaths use. And that weapon is a gun.

So a few psychopaths use weapons in rages probably fueled from proven medicinal side effects and our answer is to take weapons away from everyone? Including the majority of our law abiding citizens? This idea is so utterly idiotic that I have a hard time even repeating it. So lets ban citizens on mental health drugs from obtaining a weapon? It almost sounds logical until we realize the average Joe is prescribed psychotropic medicine far too easily and with out real regard from Doctors. You just have to meet a specific behavior profile. Remember what I stated earlier? 1 in 5 Americans are presently prescribed these types of medicines and many just may not need them. So surely that will not work. What other solution is there?

I think a much better solution would be to outlaw psychotropic mind-altering medicines that cause violent behavior from the get go. We can ban all of the weapons we want… its not going to stop a maniac from picking his weapon of choice and going to town on its victims. A maniac with a samurai Sword can slash through a classroom full of kids in a gun free school zone easily if his will around his goal happens to be strong enough. I do not see a point in banning weapons that cause lacerations do you? What we have is a mental health problem and a prescription drug problem not a weapon problem. Does that make sense? I personally know people who get behind the wheel on medications meant for sleeping, meant for pain and meant for psychosis when they should not only endangering the welfare of many. Is this illegal? No! But having three beers is? Something really is wrong with that logic. And I am all for slamming DWI offenders. We have a problem and its the medicine we as Americans consume daily.

Medications kill roughly 100,000 Americans each year according to study statistics. For guns to be as deadly as medications we would need a Sandy Hook massacre ten times a day every day for a year. Only then will gun violence meet the number of deaths caused by DR prescribed medications. So is the gun push about stopping violence and death or several other agendas? I hope to god things change. As much as I DISLIKE our current president and his agenda I want nothing more to have him help fix our mess. I would bow down to him eternally. Unfortunately every day it feels like he is working harder and harder to destroy what I love so much. You can be the judge of that but the way things are shaping up we have an epidemic of mass proportions that is literally destroying the American way of life as we once knew it. Be prepared… a collapse is looming.