[sac beh]

AlterNet has an article titled Why Are We Drugging Our Kids? which presents the case for overuse of psychiatric drugs. Some startling statistics about the increased prescription of these drugs for kids, their often damaging effects, and Pharma's profits. A few juicy snippets:

Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs found spending for mental health care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.
...
"All these drugs may curb a target symptom slightly more effectively than a placebo does for a short period of time, say six weeks," Whitaker said. However, what "you find with every class of these psychiatric drugs is a worsening of the target symptom of depression or psychosis or anxiety, over the long term, compared to placebo-treated patients."

"So even on the target symptoms, there's greater chronicity and greater severity of symptoms," he reports, "And you see a fairly significant percentage of patients where new and more severe psychiatric symptoms are triggered by the drug itself."

At the same time New Scientist's Psychiatry's civil war details the battle among psychiatrists who want to expand definitions of mental illnesses and those who oppose these efforts.

When doctors disagree with each other, they usually couch their criticisms in careful, measured language. In the past few months, however, open conflict has broken out among the upper echelons of US psychiatry. The focus of discord is a volume called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, which psychiatrists turn to when diagnosing the distressed individuals who turn up at their offices seeking help. Regularly referred to as the profession's bible, the DSM is in the midst of a major rewrite, and feelings are running high.

Two eminent retired psychiatrists are warning that the revision process is fatally flawed. They say the new manual, to be known as DSM-V, will extend definitions of mental illnesses so broadly that tens of millions of people will be given unnecessary and risky drugs...

Some of the most acrimonious arguments stem from worries about the pharmaceutical industry's influence over psychiatry. This has led to the spotlight being turned on the financial ties of those in charge of revising the manual, and has made any diagnostic changes that could expand the use of drugs especially controversial.

When will there be a huge revolt against the business of drugging our kids for profit? There must be an argument for cannabis legalization here... Skip?

Sources:
https://www.alternet.org/healthwellne...gging_our_kids
https://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true

[Skip]

Yes, this is all a ploy to allow doctors to prescribe even more psychiatric drugs. And as the article points out, these individuals determining what constitutes a psychiatric disorder are in the pay of Big Pharma. That shouldn't be a surprise. Big Pharma is the BIGGEST DRUG PUSHER on the planet, causing untold misery.

Know how to stop this dead in its tracks? Start SUING the Docs prescribing drugs that don't really help and make your symptoms worse. Enough lawsuits and these docs will rethink their prescribing standards.

On the other hand, once cannabis remedies are in the hands of Big Pharma, they will be prescribing it like aspirin, since it has so many uses in psychiatry and medicine.

Another good way to fight this is to EDUCATE people to confront their doctors about what they prescribe, and ASK for Cannabis whenever it can help their situation.

[Hydro-Soil]

This slice of the healthcare system and the tiny slice of it that revolves around pregnancy are absolutely disgusting. Watch "The Business of Being Born", a documentary on childbirth in America. Sick!

There's another documentary that covers medicating kids... wow. Truly horrifying what doctors are doing to kids in the name of 'Good Pharmacology".


Chemical and Insurance companies are responsible, mostly, for how out of control our healthcare system is... it needs to be re-tooled from the ground up and WITHOUT the influence of Big Pharma. Thankyouverymuch.

Stay Safe all!

(That means getting REAL doctors for your kid and working with cannabis as a FIRST line defense, not using Rx willy nilly because your hmo doc says that's what's so.)

[Catharsis]

I've always disagreed with the drugging of children with psychotropics, Cannabis included.

[sac beh]

Originally Posted by Skip

On the other hand, once cannabis remedies are in the hands of Big Pharma, they will be prescribing it like aspirin, since it has so many uses in psychiatry and medicine.

which scares me. who knows what else they'll stick in their "cannabis-based" drugs to make kids chemically addicted to their products, because regrettably for Pharma cannabis insures repeat customers because of its effectiveness not addictiveness.

So in my opinion efforts to legalize must focus on the rights of individuals to grow and use cannabis, NOT on making cannabis a prescription-based drug only made by pharmas.

[kweb1989]

reminds me of when i was in the military... they put me on over a dozen meds over 2-3months, went to the psyc ward for a couple weeks got out... doc said there isnt a medicine that would help me. I havnt smoked in a while cause i lost my job and am trying to get another but CANNABIS WORKS MORE THEN PILLS!!!

I been on almost all the BS docs can give you and nothing works... just makes you sleep and less social!

A pill can kill but there's hope in dope!

This has led to the spotlight being turned on the financial ties of those in charge of revising the manual,

Aren't there "conflict of interests" laws in the US?

If not, there should be.

[Pistil_Party09]

the fact that Rx drugs are advertised on tv, radio, internet etc is proof enough how fucked america and big pharma really is.

next person i talk to whose on antidepressants im gonna ask for them then dump em down the drain.

ive seen many people close to me be put on pills and get totally fucked up

i had a friend in high school who had ADHD i guess and the meds they put him on made him a totally different person....antisocial...quiet.. .mumbled alot....stared at the ground...look unhappy all the time....
its sad to see....

[dubwise]

Originally Posted by Blue Dot

Aren't there "conflict of interests" laws in the US?

If not, there should be.

Yes there are for those who are not elite....and no for the elite.

[Hydro-Soil]

Originally Posted by sac beh

So in my opinion efforts to legalize must focus on the rights of individuals to grow and use cannabis, NOT on making cannabis a prescription-based drug only made by pharmas.

Exactly!

To everyone who has issues with giving kids cannabis.... what harmful studies have you read about that differentiated between sativas and indicas? Any that actually worked with known strains and grow/harvest methods?

25 F'n years I used 'street cannabis' with varying degrees of success. It was effective enough, often enough, that I subconsciously pursued it consistently.
Once I hit California and started treating my back pain with cannabis I found out that certain strains were ABSOLUTELY F'N FANTASTIC for my head, anxiety, memory and focus as well.

Treating kids with cannabis without paying attention to quality, consistency and (most importantly) strain, is dangerous and just wrong. Working with a child to find the appropriate strain to assist them is the best possible thing you could do for a child's future. It affects their physical and mental health in such a positive way it's asinine to consider a chemical cocktail as a "Safer" alternative.

Get the hell out of our kids Big Pharma.... You've F'ed them up enough already!