Young people are being overmedicated and undermined. It is time that we recognize that the deluge of amphetamines and psychotropic drugs being consumed by teenagers may be more of a problem than a solution.
About 60% of patients with psychiatrist office visits leading to a drug prescription received at least two medications in 2005-2006, according to government survey data. That was up from about 43% in 1996-1997. “These trends put patients at increased risk of drug-drug interactions with uncertain gains for quality of care and clinical outcomes,” the researchers stated.
Genita Petralli, president of nonprofit Green Body and Mind, director of Patient Services at Alternative to Meds Clinic, and an author of several books, says it’s her mission to “educate all those interested in what is causing the epidemic mental health crisis of today, how to avoid it, how to get off psychiatric drugs if you are on them now, and why toxic drugs should not ever be called medicine.” To that end, Petralli launched the area’s first Green Mental Health Care Day, a day where speakers and healers came together to address the problems of psychiatric drugs and offer several alternative solutions.
Joanna Moncrieff of University College London wrote an opinion piece recently for the BBC. Contrary to the impression promoted by the psychiatric and drug industries, psychiatric drugs do not work by correcting a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Researchers found that when given to infant rats, the drugs caused behavioral abnormalities later in life. What’s more, the abnormalities were not limited to the drugs known to cause neuronal cell death. “That is of particular concern because some of the drugs may predispose to psychiatric disorders later in life,” says lead author Patrick Forcelli.