http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1067.a05.html
(Feel free to overlook the many lies told by the debubker group about Dr
Breggin)
( Unlike many, he isn't in bed with organized medicine)
US: Kids are Suffering Legal Drug Abuse
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1067.a05.html
Newshawk: Martha G.
Pubdate: Sun, 26 Sep 1999
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
Contact: [email hidden]
Address: P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378
Feedback: http://extranet1.globe.com/LettersEditor/
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/
Author: Peter R. Breggin
KIDS ARE SUFFERING LEGAL DRUG ABUSE
Most adults used to think that psychoactive drugs - substances that affect
thinking and feeling - were bad for children and teen-agers. Hence the slogan,
''Just say no to drugs.'' At the same time, prescribing psychiatric drugs to
children was a rare and extreme measure.
But now many adult authorities are turning to drugs in order to bridge the gap
between generations in a far more insidious and coercive way - by the forced
drugging of children. Probably at least 5 million or 6 million children each
year - 10 percent or more of the school-age population - will take one or more
of a variety of psychiatric drugs, including stimulants such as Ritalin and
Adderall and antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft. The rates are even
higher among children in special classes, foster care, mental hospitals, and
juvenile detention centers.
In my psychiatric practice, I see children 6 to 10 years old who have been put
on four or five psychiatric medications at once. Why? Because their parents
and their teachers haven't found a way to reach them with the necessary
combination of rational discipline, unconditional love, and engaging
relationship. And because society has failed to address the whole range of
problems that afflict our children - from the breakdown of the family and the
educational system to child abuse, sexism, racism, poverty, and inadequate
health care.
Who gets drugged among our children? Literally any kids who do not put on a
happy face and conform. This includes children who are sad and anxious, or
angry and aggressive, as well as disobedient kids - children who won't do their
chores, finish their homework, or get good grades. Even children who are shy
and dreamy are now the target of psychiatric drugs.
This medicalization of shyness ignores its causes, including both traumatic
abuse and natural personality differences. The child is compelled to display a
drug-induced superficial social veneer. In a society that's supposed to accept
and even value differences, drugging shy children reflects an extreme of
enforced conformity.
The child's ''problem'' in many cases is caused by unrealistic adult
expectations or neglect, conflict, and trauma. But instead of recognizing our
role in creating and in healing our children's suffering, we give them
psychiatric labels such as Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Clinical Depression that blame the children
themselves and their presumably faulty brains.
As a result, the International Narcotics Control Board of the World Health
Organization has warned about the massive overprescription of stimulants to
children in the United States, a country that now uses 90 percent of the
world's Ritalin.
We are the first adults to handle the generation gap through the wholesale
drugging of our children. We may be guaranteeing that future generations will
be relatively devoid of people who think critically, raise painful questions,
generate productive conflicts, or lead us to new spiritual and political
insights.
Growing up on psychiatric drugs, millions of children are developing little
sense of personal responsibility. Instead of discovering their own capacity to
improve their lives and to transform the world for the better, they are being
taught they are brain-defective - and require lifetime treatment with
psychiatric drugs.
From Ritalin and Dexedrine to Prozac and Paxil, the drug epidemic among our
children comes increasingly from our prescription counters. ( Indeed, the use
of most illicit drugs has for some time shown a steady decline among youth. )
It's time to stop subduing our children at the cost of their brains and their
independent mental life. Instead, we need to do what every generation has been
called upon to do - to bridge the gap through active, disciplined, and loving
engagement with the children in our care.
There's no simple prescription for this. It requires a thorough reevaluation
of personal and political priorities and a determination to create a society
that meets the needs of its children for adult relationships, solid family
life, inspiring education, and equal opportunity for men and women of all
racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Amid all the hype over ''listening to Prozac,'' we need to listen much harder
to our children's cries for help. Instead of chemically restraining and
gagging them, we need to do the hard work of reordering our private lives and
our public policies to address the needs of our nation's children.