Yonit Shames
Published: January 25, 2006
The War on Drugs, kicked off by President Nixon in the 1980’s, poses a multi-billion dollar yearly expenditure, yet that pales in comparison to the $200 billion that Americans spend on prescription drugs annually.
Americans are simply obsessed with drugs. And although we like to pretend that recreational and prescription drugs are worlds apart, the line between them is far thinner than we would like it to be.
Many of them are almost identical in composition. Some of them have the same effects as illegal drugs- which has led to a surge in recreational prescription drug use.
Keep drugs out of school, we say, spending billions of dollars to try to inculcate children with that message- and then we put drugs directly in schools.
According to an annual report by Medco Health Solutions, approximately 6 million American children are on drugs treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Between 2003 and 2004, there was a staggering $2.3 billion dollar increase in the amount spent on these drugs in the U.S. There was also a 49 percent rise in their usage in children under five.
Nor is the dependence on drugs isolated to ADHD. In 2004, the Journal of the American Medical Association published reports that showed an increase in anti-depressant use for children as young as two. Pediatric anti-depressant use rose 21 percent, and medication for other “conduct disorders” rose 71 percent.
In fact, a staggering 17 percent of total pediatric drug spending was on behavioral medication- in comparison to 16 percent for antibiotics and asthma drugs, and 11 percent for dermatological conditions.
Is it really possible that so many American children are mentally ill and require the use of powerful psychiatric drugs to achieve normalcy?
The fact is, it’s easier to scapegoat children and blame them for their behavioral problems than to admit that there is something seriously wrong with conventional medicine and psychiatry if drugging has become the primary method for coping with abnormal behavior.
As it stands, the diagnostic criteria for some mental illnesses, ADHD in particular, are far too open to interpretation.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook used by physicians to diagnose mental illnesses, contains criteria for the diagnosis of ADHD that are impossibly vague. According to the manual, the ADHD child “often fidgets,” “often runs about,” and “has difficulty waiting turn,” among other criteria.
This isn’t to say that some children aren’t mentally ill. Psychiatric medications have been lifelines for families of children who really do suffer from mental illness.
On the other hand, many American parents are taught by psychiatric professionals to have completely unrealistic expectations of their children. In the case of ADHD, for example, should children really be expected to sit still, never fidget and always wait their turns?
When our diagnostic criteria are often so vague, and when we are drug-dependent as it is, it is safe to say that we may reach for the bottle of pills before exploring other options.
It may not have occurred to us that drugs were not the best option for adult patients, but using chemical crutches for children’s behavioral problems may leave us with a generation of people who have never learned to deal with any emotional difficulty.
Now that is self-perpetuating.