Although the recent school shooting is
blanketing the news, everyone is avoiding the question as to WHY these mass
shootings occur when the answer might be all too obvious. It is too easy for
lazy minds to blame it on guns, as if guns walked to the schools and malls and
pulled their own triggers. Maybe there is a common link we don’t want to see.
Drugs for anxiety and mental challenges
carry the warning that they may cause harmful and suicidal thoughts, so why
don’t we see the possible connection? Kids are placed on drugs in their
preteens and grow up dependent on them and their altered thinking seems normal
to them. Not everyone on these drugs is off the chart like these people are who
choose to murder, but it is a common denominator among them that news outlets refuse
to consider or even talk about.
After all, almost every commercial break
carries an ad for one drug or another. A drug company pulling their ads would
cost them big and the bottom line is more important than any safety issue to
them.
I quickly and plainly make no assertion
that everyone on such drugs are potential killers for that would be ludicrous.
Most people benefit greatly from their help and they enable them to live healthy
and functional lives when otherwise they would be challenged daily due to the
effects of depression and anxiety. Most of our investigations and questioning,
however, happens to be conducted after the fact and there does seems to be a
link, albeit ignored by many.
In June 2014, Aaron Ybarra, killed one
student and wounded two others with a shotgun at the Seattle Pacific University.
His plan was to kill as many people as possible and then kill himself. Two
years before, Ybarra admitted that he had been prescribed the antidepressant
Prozac and antipsychotic Risperdal. His counselor said that he was taking
Prozac.
In Austin, Texas in August 1966, Charles
Whitman shot 16 people from a university tower while on amphetamines and
barbiturates. In March of 1981, John
Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. He was on Valium at
the time. William Cruse killed 6 people in 1987 while on psychiatric drugs.
Jeffery Dahmer killed and dismembered 17
people while on tranquilizers and anti-depressants in 1991. In 1997, Jeremy
Strohmeyer was charged with the rape and murder of a seven-year old girl while
on Dexerdrine, known to cause hallucinations, confusion, anxiety and violent
behavior and mood swings.
In the famous shooting at Virginia Tech
in 2007, where 32 were killed, prescription drugs “related to the treatment of
psychological problems” were found by investigators among the shooter’s
effects.
In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five
children while under the influence of Effexor and Remeron, known to cause
thoughts of suicide in young people as well as impulsive,
irritable, agitated, hostile, aggressive, restless, hyperactive (mentally or
physically) behavior, and the possibility of becoming even more depressed. The list goes on and includes the most recent shootings as
well.
According to British psychiatrist Dr. David Healy, a founder of
RxISK.org, an independent website for researching and reporting on prescription
drugs, 90 percent of school shootings over more than a decade have been linked
to a widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs.
253 million prescriptions for antidepressants
are filled every year in the United States, the second most prescribed drug in
America, second only to cholesterol-lowering drugs.
An alarming fact is that a study in 2010
found that effectiveness of antidepressant drugs to be “minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or
moderate symptoms.” Yet, there is ample evidence on the other hand that such
behavior-altering drugs “intensify violent thoughts and behaviors, both
suicidal and homicidal, especially among children.”
So, is there a connection between these
mass shootings and violent behavior we have seen in recent years? It appears a
very distinct possibility. Personally, I think the pharmaceutical companies, or
politicians whose pockets are lined with campaign donations by them, are
reluctant to make that connection because it is a multi-billion-dollar industry
and as we all know, money talks.
The next time you hear some politician
giving lip-service to “protecting our children” especially after a school
shooting, as they always do, ask yourself where their main priority is, safety
of our children, or winning their next campaign and getting rich with donations
and contributions?
In fact, the next time you have the
opportunity to question one, ask them yourself.
