Instances of mass violence and mass shootings occur undoubtedly too often. When shootings such as those in Sandy Hook, Columbine, Aurora, and Virginia Tech happen, the blame often falls on gun ownership, violent media, or violent video games. I believe, as a whole, people are overlooking a variable that could very well be at the root of this problem — psychotropic drugs.
National, state and local legislators in the wake of the shootings in Newtown, Conn., are all abuzz over the prospect of stopping such people as Adam Lanza by preventive diagnosis and possible preventive detention.
If my late friend, eminent psychiatric critic Dr. Thomas Szasz, were alive today and read about all of the references to “mental illnesses” and “mental health” as a way to lessen the number of mass killings, he would say, “Am I surprised? No, of course not. This is a way to pretend that evil does not motivate such atrocities and a way for politicians to act as if they have discovered a way to stop them.”
There have been recent calls for a national Mental Health Registry, and then additional calls to link such a registry to gun licensing. In the dreadful wake of Newtown, both the left and the right and the current US federal administration are demanding that we tighten mental health statutes to make it easier and even mandatory for health care providers including psychiatrists and psychotherapists to incarcerate people on suspicion of perpetrating violence.
In a recent blog, I evaluated all the ways psychiatry and individual psychiatrists already have too much authority to lock up American citizens. I’ve pointed out how ineffective that power has proven in preventing violence.
If lawmakers and authorities are truly concerned about stopping gun violence in schools, they need to take a close look at the prescription of psychotropic drugs for children and young people, says a leading psychiatrist.
For the first time ever, and for a brief moment in time, two knowledgeable and highly credentialed public figures have commented on the fact that psychiatric medications cause violence and must be considered suspect in the case of the Newtown shooter. But then, as if it never happened, and as if psychiatric drugs could not possibly be implicated in violence, the issue was dropped by the media.