This morning I read an interesting article in the NY Times entitled Raising the Ritalin Generation and it was about the author’s experiences with that drug and what she felt was its over use. Her eight-year-old boy was having trouble focusing in school and his teacher suggested he be tested for AD HD. Her point seemed to be that not enough attention is paid to the possible side effects, especially on a young child. While some children do in fact have severe attention deficit disorder, there are plenty who don’t and are prescribed the drug unnecessarily. The main thrust of the article seemed to be that in general, we are becoming or have become a society that looks for magic bullet solutions to complicated problems. This struck a nerve with me. Maybe the kid didn’t focus because he had a bad teacher, or because he was like every other energetic kid who would rather play outside than read about Magellan. We take pills to get erections, to put us to sleep, to wake us up, keep us from being depressed, or to counter the side effects of other pills with dubious effectiveness. One need only listen to the sometimes ludicrous laundry list of possible side effects in the fast-talking disclaimers to realize that something may be wrong here. May causing bleeding from every orifice in your body … if you feel like killing yourself or others, stop taking the drug … don’t take this drug if you drink water, eat meat, or use a cell phone, and on and on. My wife Shauna suffers from several chronic illnesses which cause her great discomfort. One of those illnesses, fibromyalgia, has been particularly debilitating. She has tried many drugs to provide her some relief, none which have been particularly helpful. There is drug being hyped on T.V. these days called Lyrica which professes to provide relief for fibromyaligia symptoms. If you want a laugh sometime, google it and read the page entitled “Lyrica is not for everyone.” Years ago, Shauna tried what I think was a similar drug that was widely recommended called Amitriptyline. Basically it was an anti-depressant and it did not help in any way. In fact, it made matters much worse. Shauna gained a lot of weight that was subsequently difficult to shed, the drug made her into a zombie, did nothing to relieve her pain, and she had to wean herself off it very slowly. It is still being prescribed and I wonder what the long term effects are. While pills can certainly improve our lives, caveat emptor, nothing comes for free.
Speaking of drugs that don’t help, have you read about the drug generally referred to as “bath salts”? As I understand it, bath salts is basically another synthetic designer drug similar in effect to the very destructive crystal meth which has metastasized in North America. Bath salts, of which there are many variations, was up until very recently legally available and sold in head shops and on the internet. It first came onto my radar when I heard about that guy in Miami who ate the face off another guy while reportedly high on bath salts. In my wildest fits of teenaged stupidity I was never tempted to sniff airplane glue and inhale spray deodorant. Of course turning one’s brain into lunchmeat is bad enough, but these bath salts apparently inspire psychotic, violent behavior as well. Give me some of that! Who wants to smoke a doob and curl up to Cat Stevens when you can crank up your The Flesh Eaters (yes, there is a band by that name) album, snort some “BS” and chow down on some face. Now you're talkin'! Scary stuff.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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