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30 Million Americans On Antidepressants And 21 Other Facts About America's Endless Pharmaceutical Nightmare
Submitted by Michael Snyder of End of The American Dream blog,
Has there ever been a nation more hooked on drugs than the United States? And I am not just talking about illegal drugs – the truth is that the number of Americans addicted to legal drugs is far greater than the number of Americans addicted to illegal drugs. As you will read about below, more than 30 million Americans are currently on antidepressants and doctors in the U.S. wrote more than 250 million prescriptions for painkillers last year. Sadly, most people got hooked on these drugs very innocently. They trusted that their doctors would never prescribe something for them that would be harmful, and they trusted that the federal government would never approve any drugs that were not safe. And once the drug companies get you hooked, they often have you for life.
You see, the reality of the matter is that some of these “legal drugs” are actually some of the most addictive substances on the entire planet. And when they start raising the prices on those drugs, there isn’t much that the addicts can do about it. It is a brutally efficient business model, and the pharmaceutical industry guards their territory fiercely. Very powerful people will often do some really crazy things when there are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake. The following are 22 facts about America’s endless pharmaceutical nightmare that everyone should know…
#1 According to the New York Times, more than 30 million Americans are currently taking antidepressants.
#2 The rate of antidepressant use among middle aged women is far higher than for the population as a whole. At this point, one out of every four women in their 40s and 50s is taking an antidepressant medication.
#3 Americans account for about five percent of the global population, but we buy more than 50 percent of the pharmaceutical drugs.
#4 Americans also consume a whopping 80 percent of all prescription painkillers.
#5 It is hard to believe, but doctors in the United States write 259 million prescriptions for painkillers each year. Prescription painkillers are some of the most addictive legal drugs, and our doctors are serving as enablers for millions up0n millions of Americans that find themselves hooked on drugs that they cannot kick.
#6 Overall, pharmaceutical drug use in America is at an all-time high. According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.
#7 According to the CDC, approximately 9 out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years old say that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.
#8 In 2010, the average teen in the United States was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs. Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.
#9 A very disturbing Government Accountability Office report found that approximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug.
#10 An astounding 95 percent of the “experimental medicines” that the pharmaceutical industry produces are found not to be safe and are never approved. Of the remaining 5 percent that are approved, we often do not find out that they are deadly to us until decades later.
#11 One study discovered that mothers that took antidepressants during pregnancy were four times more likely to have a baby that developed an autism spectrum disorder.
#12 It has been estimated that prescription drugs kill approximately 200,000 people in the United States every single year.
#13 An American dies from an unintentional prescription drug overdose every 19 minutes. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, accidental prescription drug overdose is “the leading cause of acute preventable death for Americans”.
#14 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.
#15 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#16 The number of prescription drug overdose deaths in the United States is five times higher than it was back in 1980.
#17 A survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15 percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription drugs.
#18 More than 26 million women over the age of 25 say that they are “using prescription medications for unintended uses“.
#19 If all of these antidepressants are helping, then why are more Americans killing themselves? The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 increased by nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. The number of Americans that die by suicide is now greater than the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents every year.
#20 Antidepressant use has been linked to mass shootings in America over and over and over again, and yet the mainstream media is eerily quiet about this. Is it because they don’t want to threaten one of their greatest sources of advertising revenue?
#21 The amount of money that the pharmaceutical industry is raking in is astronomical. It has been reported that Americans spent more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.
If many of these drugs were not so addictive, the pharmaceutical companies would make a lot less money. And pharmaceutical drug addicts often don’t fit the profile of what we think a “drug addict” would look like. For example, CNN shared the story of a 55-year-old grandmother named Cynthia Scudo that become addicted to prescription painkillers…
For Scudo, her addiction began — as they all do — innocently enough.
She sought relief from hip pain, possibly caused by scarring from cesarean sections she had delivering several of her children.
Her then-husband recommended a physician.
“There was no physical therapy offered,” she said of the doctor’s visit. “The first reaction was, let’s give you some drugs.”
He put her on OxyContin.
By the second week, she was physically addicted.
She was popping so much of the painkiller and other drugs such as anti-anxiety Valium that they equated to a dosage for three men.
There is lots and lots of money to be made from addiction. In fact, if the U.S. health care system was a totally separate nation it would actually be the 6th largest economy on the entire globe. We are talking about piles of money larger than most people would ever dare to imagine.
And with so much money floating around, it is quite easy for the pharmaceutical industry to buy the cooperation of our politicians and of the media.
Some time when you are watching television in the evening, consciously take note of how often a pharmaceutical commercial comes on.
It has gotten to the point where we are literally being inundated with these ads.
They are already making hundreds of billions of dollars, and they think that there is room for even more growth.
Will they ever be satisfied?
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Yes to the peppers, and Garlic. 4-5 cloves a day cleans the arteries over 3 - 4 months.
Can't argue with what works.
I took some of that shit for about a month as a fairly fit 40 yo. Played 18 holes in a cart and was having a lot of trouble getting through the round. Could barely reach the greens on the back nine even when clubbing up. Started reading about the side effects when I got home.
That shit was destroying my muscles. Got off of it and never looked back. Why spend the last decades of your life as an invalid?
Any pharmacologist/researcher
familiar with BIG PHARMA knows
better than to develop any drug that
cures a disease/disorder--there
just is no money in such drugs.
What BIG PHARMA demands is
development of drugs that a
patient must be "maintained" on,
or, better yet, becomes addicted to.
In the 60's it was speed/amphetamines
(GSK known as "the house that speed built)
and barbiturates...now the "Gold Standards"
are drugs like oxycontin and Ritalin...
Ho Chí Minh, a man of great understanding,
had it down pat--In the Viet Nam war,
he ran opium/heroin down from the
Golden Triangle to Saigon and made it
cheap and freely available to US troops..
It was absolutely WONDERFUL!!
here was a weapon that debilitated
the enemy and they took it home
to spread the disease, and it was
weapon that both destroyed the enemy
AND turned a profit!!
Drug companies employ the same philosophy
of addiction, maintenance, enslavement.
I think you are confusing ho chi with c I a.
So tired of the land of obese alcoholics ranting about the ravages of drug addiction.
jballz--I suspect that you are one
of the "obese alcoholics" who
shoots off your mouth, knowing
absolutely nothing either about drugs
or "the ravages of drug addiction"
With respect to Ho Chih Minh and
the web of drug profits and addiction
underlying the Vietnam War, I suggest
you read "The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia" and "The Politics of
Heroin:CIA complicity in the Global
Drug Trade" by Alfred W McCoy..
(Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail
professor of History at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a doctorate
in southeast Asian history from
Yale University and received the Goodman
prize from the Association for Asian Studies
he is also the author of "A question of
Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War
to the War on Terror)
Other than that, I am certain that your
ignorance of addictive drugs is so abysmal
as to preclude any rational discussion
of the subject.
Good rebuttal of facts.
Eat and drink whatever the fuck you want.
Either way, you die (physically).
However, being intelligent about what you eat and drink is better.
And being intelligent about how you live your life is best.
And you libertarian guys still want to deregulate before breakfast, lunch and dinner..
I actually recomend to my statist pro vaccine, pro monsanto, pro roundup friends to spray roundup on everything they eat and stop at every CVS, Walgreens, and WalsMarts to get as many free vaccinations as they can. Their response is usually "Thats dangerous!" right after telling me yhat those things are safe and harmless. If something is stated as being safe and harmless then you should be able to consume as much as possible with no adverse affects, since thats the definition of safe and harmless. they then procceed to tell me how safe and harmless roundup, vaccines and gmo's are. I think their brains might be broken.
This type of abuse is more a reflection of what a society has become as it degenerates. The drugs are used to ease the transition. They do have positive benefits but the biggest problem is that there is no data for long term affects of use of such drugs. In other words what will happen 30 years from now with continued use? The North American society, along with a few others is based on creating products that people consume. The pharmaceutical industry is no different. If people buy it then produce it. There is no thought as to whether the product is one that will be beneficial to people only that it sells.
People become addicted to many things. Food, alcohol, sex, money, technology, drugs and just about every other area you can think of. If taking prescription drugs eliminates the pain then people will take the substance rather than deal with "why" the pain is there to begin with. This will not end until people get their pride back and start taking responsibility for their own actions. We are all interconnected as a human race and to look after our fellow man is no different than looking out for ourselves. We don't do that very much any more.
Life itself is all about chemistry and how it affects our own chemistry.
#3 Americans account for about five percent of the global population, but we buy more than 50 percent of the pharmaceutical drugs.
-- Do Americans actually take > 50% of all drugs, or do they just pay > 50% of the cost? And why do Americans have to bear the full cost of drug development for the entire world?
I'm coming to the view that drug development and testing should be performed by the state (FDA), and pharmaceutical companies should merely compete with each other to produce drugs efficiently. The current system is too prone to rent-seeking and corruption. With companies sponsoring the research to prove their own drugs safe and effective, it is far too easy and common for studies showing those drugs to be unsafe and/or ineffective to be buried in a filing cabinet somewhere and never see the light of day. With scientists muzzled by nondisclosure agreements, the decision of whether to release or act upon a negative study easily boils down to a financial one: will the company make enough money selling the drug to pay the judgements that will result when the harmful effects are discovered, or not? If all drug research were done by governments, such considerations would not apply. Furthermore, government officials would be more likely to fund the development of drugs that were needed (e.g., radical new antibiotic therapies) rather than those that were simply profitable (e.g., baldness cures).
You are making this much too complicated.
Change the paradigm.
Humans lived for thousands of years without Big Pharma.
Actually, humans only lived about four decades or less without Big Pharma. One of the first things they invented was the medicine man.
I miss Paxil terribly. It was wonderful to live through the Bush administration and not notice anything about it. War? What war? I quit cold turkey after about 8 years on the stuff, since it was making me fat and giving me sky high blood pressure (SSRIs triple your risk of diabetes, too). It took a YEAR for the withdrawal symtoms to go away - in the first weeks I had the "night terror" dreams (the ones in which you are convinced there is something evil sitting next to you, but you have sleep paralysis so you can't move, even to open your eyes), and for months on end I felt as if electric shocks were coursing through me. They used to lie about the withdrawal symtoms (mine were typical), but then enough people sued so they couldn't keep saying the stuff wasn't addictive.
So now I'm skinny again, have okay blood pressure, and am depressed; have been for two years now. Please don't tell me about alternative treatments; I've tried them all and so have my innumerable depressed female relatives. You know, those drugs really work for a lot of people - that is, they get rid of the depression. Whether it is worth it just depends on how desperate you are, and how many other things you have tried. Most of my female relatives are on them, and they went from desperately unhappy to fat and cheerful. I imagine I'll go back on them at some point; I guess I'll keep my fat person clothing. Funny how 25 pounds dropped off in about three months; they tell you that you'll gain 5 pounds; haha it is always 25.
You did right.
Skinny is more important than everything (except maybe suicidal).
Thank you for sharing.
Stay off that shit. Depression is complicated, but there is a lot to be depressed about from a rational point of view.
http://www.spectracell.com/patients/patient-micronutrient-testing/
http://www.tahomaclinicblog.com/lithium-the-misunderstood-mineral-part-1/
Yes, I've checked out low-dose lithium. It is very impressive. I've given it to a non-relative and it is helping that person a lot. Doesn't help me at all, unfortunately. I think it is best suited to people who have anxiety/manic type depression, rather than those who have just plain anhedonic depression.
Thank you for the Spectracell link; I will look into it.
kareninca "Please don't tell me about alternative treatments;"
Don't treat. Buy a guitar and start singing the blues.
Seriously, keep looking. Something will take the edge off.
i knew this would be a michael snyder article.
Okay, I am going to be the general counterpoint to all the mostly know-nothing lemmings here. Big pharma (is there Little Pharma?) is a popular whipping post and after reading 300 comments here from which I glean not one works in medicine I will try to insert a bit of balance or sanity. I really don't mind the down arrows. In fact, when I have the energy I like being the contrarian.
Here is a general idea to get started. It is all chemistry at the end of the day. Whether you are talking about a prescription medicine, an herb, a root, alcohol marijuana or cocaine...it is all chemisty and natural things can kill you dead or cause side effects the same as anything else. I can give you multiple stories of "natural" remedies causing big problems. Generally, they run on theory, tradition and testimonials and marketing glitz far more than actual controlled double-blinded, placebo controlled studies. They also actually profit from the unavailability of prescription drugs, i.e. you want to boost your testosterone but you don't want to go to the doctor, explain yourself and then fight with an insurance company over what you will pay. So you buy Manbooster Plus! Asserting cinnamon is better for you than a prescription medicine is generally bogus. The only advantage is that cinnamon has been around a long time and doesn't hurt you in cooking doses but no one has taken the equivalent of 100lbs a year for ten years, either. Maybe your eyes turn red and your hair falls out. Who knows?
Second, the reason there are more prescription meds now than ever is because you can treat more things than ever. This is actually what drove doctors' incomes through the roof starting back in the 1940's. They have long been able to diagnose but had very few treatments that were any better than the disease. Pharmaceuticals are the primary thing that made the diagnosis useful because they could treat. It then became very useful to see your doctor for virtually anything as there is a treatment for virtually everything. For example, if you looked at the number of presciptions for things that improved your sex life in 1900 there was nothing (okay, cocaine) and not even a formal regulated prescription system. In 1950 virtually nothing, in 2000 lots and lots of things. The meds are pretty innocuous, as well. Blue vision should appeal to hippies, too. It would be the same for antibiotics, GI meds, antiepileptics, etc. There are lots and lots of prescriptions because there are lots and lots of treatments available.
Third, people actually live longer, are heavier and more sedentary than every. Falling off a horse, getting run over by a buggy and horse related accidents were more common than car accidents in prior centuries. You broke something and maybe you died or were permanently debilitated. You got hooked on an opiod if you could get it or drank your pain away if you could. It's all you had. You might even commit suicide if it was unbearable. Now, you survive the car accident, and you take meds for the resulting seizures, headaches, phantom pains, depression and sleep problems. You walk up to someone with these problems and tell them they are an asshole or pharma tool. My dad is chronic pain patient, a beat up old vet. Let me give you the long and short, he either gets pain meds or commits suicide. That's the choice. Sucks, but that's the way it is. Anyway, my point is that we live longer with more problems than 1900 when the average life expectancy was about 42.
Fourth, there are trade offs you have to make. Sure, you treat your blood pressure, depression, seizures or bipolar and suddenly your sex life fades away. Yup. That can happen. You need to make a trade orrrrr, you now take another med that will give you your sex life back. Now you have two or three meds. Your choice. Hopefully, you have a physician that you trust to help you with the choices.
Fifth, when you look at meds like Zantac and Prilosec which made billions in their day, they actually nearly eliminated gastric surgeries for ulcers, GERD and other GI disorders. They can eliminate many other problems So, you look at one side of the equation which is billions more for pharma without trading off the opposite side which was billions less for hospitals, surgeons, and surgical teams. I will guarantee it was a cost savings. You can save the price of an antibiotic for your kid, try to build their immune system but also risk permanent hearing loss if things go badly. What do you want to do? Also, do you not think a soccer mom wants an antibiotic for little Johnny every time he sneezes or pulls his ears? Yup. She pressures the doc mercilessly and threatens to leave the practice if he doesn't. BTW, she feels a new UTI coming on and wants to get one, too just in case.
Sixth, the price of a medicine has little or nothing to do with it's cost of production. I have seen a few uninformed posts here and a million other places. Most of the heavy costs will be regulatory, limited patent time, marketing, cost of failure, litigation including class action suits and research or buying a product from a research outfit. Then you will have to fend off governments and insurers who want it for free. I could say a lot more about cost shifting but just understand it is very complex. As a side note, the morons who favor Obamacare and single payor systems will be shocked when they find out that the private sector has always hugely subsidized the goverment sector which is why American health costs so much. Think of illegal aliens getting free hospital care and what you have to pay to cover it. That would be a good model or analogy.
Seventh, if you and your leftist and big pharma conspiracy friends really believe what you say then you are free to go out and start your own company. Find a raft of PH'D's from the top universities in the world, fully fund a state of the art lab, hire a couple hundred lawyers for both the regulatory maze and liability side, run through thousands of compounds find a few that work without killing the host, too, go through several years of studies from petri dishes to human studies, finish the filings, get approval, negotiate contracts, hire marketing and sales teams, spend a billion before the first pill hits a shelf...then put it out to the public, hope no one has a weird or unexpected side effect, survive the class action lawsuits if they do, pay billions to government if you say one word they don't agree with...no matter if it is true, do the extra research after approval and sell it for pennies because that is what it should cost to the FSA. You and your friends go do it. You are all sure it can be done. BTW, generics do not count. They all went through that process, too. I will applaud you if you succeed. Really, I will.
Last, don't take any meds you don't want. If you are hurting, sick, impaired, depressed...do what you think is right. Really. Go your own path as much as the government will allow you, anyway. My bet is that most of the time you will take the medicine or maybe you will go herbal which is really about the same thing, chemistry. Many times you might have a physical therapy alternative, as well. You own yourself (sort of) and can prove the superiority of your ideas. I wish you well.
I could on and on but I personally hate a longish post after the article itself. I have made some major points which I know will be unconvincing to those dedicated to Pharma being evil or even modern medicine. It is not perfect and probably never will be but it is way better than two or three hundred years ago. Would you like a leach or in-office bloodletting: 1800?
Just realize that there is a reasonable counterpoint to most every point in the article whether or not you agree.
sounds like you have really bought into the system. congrats.
there are a lot of folks that are 'on' meds because the good ol' doc makes money selling the stuff under the counter.
evidently the hippocratic oath does not apply to pharma.
include yourself in the know-nothing lemmings category sub-category arrogant.
basho, that is such an utterly stupid inane comment. You didn't even read it did you? Your answer to any disagreement is "You bought into the system..." with no punctuation or caps.
You are a liar, a fraud and a know-nothing. Your American doctors do not make money selling prescriptions. They make money figuring out why guys like you are so stupid.
You are the type that would talk to a Starbuck's barista and take his opinion on energy rather than a guy who actually worked in energy. This is the Leftist dilemma, in general, of which your comments are really a good example.
Try this. Try a reasoned counterpoint. Really. Try the rational thought thing.
Actually, I know quite a few people in the medical field and yes, doctors DO make money for pushing pharmameds. In the form of bonuses, trips, gifts, dinners, frequent flyer miles and all kinds of shit. So yeah, there is compensation to doctors who overly prescribe.
No, you don't know anyone who does that, not in the United States. It doesn't happen unless they are a national speaker who gets compensated to fly around and speak to audiences. The same thing used to happen to the top researchers at universities, etc. If you speak, you speak and dinners and you may get frequent flyer points but there are not gifts and lavish dinners, cash bonuses, etc. as you portray. Whoever is advising you is full of BS, repeating Urban Leftist Legend, etc. There is NO compensation unless it is happening illegaly in which case you should go turn them in immediately. You don't even know the law, the reporting requirements or any university policies. You or your friends are full of crap.
you are right, for the most part.
however, the current operating system is due for an overhaul, if not revolutionary change.
health care (and the drugs which assist it or cure a disease) should be delivered at cost or minimal profit. the cost savings gained by having structures in place to challenge drug prices/effectiveness would promote resource allocation into products that yield minimal financial benefit for the producers, but maximal benefit to greater numbers of patients. ooperation amongst company r&d teams should be promoted, patents eliminated, and clinical trial data openly shared. FUCK COMPANY BRANDING. if you have a product that helps people, then it needs to be shared with everyone who has the capability to effectively produce it. real shortages or forced scarcity would be eliminated.
the mentality that we should outrageously compensate executives and shareholders for helping others live better and longer lives is an extremist idea, if not outright sociopathic.
I will meet you halfway. The "system" needs an overhaul. However, it develops based on the rules given by government as well as the market potential just anything from a cup of coffee to accounting services.
I will also agree on overcompensated execs...in virtually all corporations and I can actually tell you why it happens. However, your prescriptions are wrong. It's like a good symptom analysis and a bad therapy.
you make a number of valid points in
your rather lengthly commentary, such
as the success of the H2 receptor
antagonists for ulcer, however one
very important consideration that
you ahave not mentioned is that the
plethora of drugs and therapies
of itself has had substantial
lethal consequences--i.e.
iatrogenic mortality...although
not precise figures, the following
certainly give a (vastly underestimated)
general order of magnitude of
the problem:
>7000 deaths per year from medication
errors in hospitals
>106,000 deaths per year from nonerror
adverse effects of medications
(fortunately for doctors, they are
generally able to "bury" their mistakes)
Iatrogenic mortality is third only to
heart disease and cancer
You make a good point, but consider this, it is a prob and stats issue. More docs, meds, people will equal more errors. However, what do you think your odds were in 1850, 1650 and so on?
Doctors are human, even if they don't admit it and they have different skill levels, different beliefs and even methods. To me, the most dangerous are the arrogant and even cavalier.
I am suspicious of some of the stats as to degree of error and the size but I will grant that they are there. I went over my dads med list when he got out of the hospital and found several "conflicts" among the meds. It took all afternoon with another professional.
Your odds in 1650, 1850 and even until
the 1928 discovery and WWII development
of penicillin and to a lesser extent the 1938
discovery of sulfonamide, your chances of
long life were really pretty lousy..pre-antisepsis
was a particularly lethal era, and conditions
like strangulated hernia and appendicitis
were common causes of death, also
plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis
along with infectious diseases like puerpural fever.
Most people do not know, or have forgotten
that the development /mass production of
penicillin in WWII was a military project
second in scope only to the Manhattan Project.
As Loretta Lynn so nicely put it:
"We've Come a Long Way, Baby"
You know your stuff. Pfizer developed a deep water vat technique that allowed mass production. Prior to that penicillan was so valuable that it was recovered from urine. It took about an entire week's pay for a dose. Penicillan came ashore with the troops in Normandy in 1944.
The discovery and mass production of penicillan is generally considered to be the start of the modern pharmaceutical era. It was off to the races after than. By 1950 you could go bankrupt just producing penicillan because it was so cheap. It is still used today.
People who complain about today and what appears to be a prescription epidemic should go back a mere 50 or 60 years much less a couple hundred. When I was a kid I saw many people who had permanent disabilities from polio. I cannot remember the last time I saw one of them.
"FreedomGuy":
You are completetely insane.
No one needs Big Pharma.
It is not unprofessional to give free legal advice, but advertising that the first visit will be free is a bit like a fox telling chickens he will not bite them until theyy cross the threshold of the hen house.
I do not get your point. Are you saying no one needs meds or no one needs the industry side? Not sure about first visit free but med companies will give a free trial if your doctor accepts the meds from the company reps.
I know a lady at work who just asked her doctor to double all of her scripts temporarily so she could build up a stockpile for emergency use because she feels that the dollar is going to collapse and that America will fall into a world without law for an extended period of time. You'd think she would have been added to the anti-2nd amendment list that the gun-control freaks are working on, but instead her doctor thought it was a great idea and obliged. The doctor was a psychiatrist and meds anti-depressant and benzodiazepines (controlled). I have to give her credit for having the vision to realize that she is dependent on medications and doing something about it, but on the other hand if you have an Obamacare doctor Homeland security will be knocking at your door, or worse yet they will just knock it down and shoot your animals.
You are a paid agent.
What is a natural alternative to benzodiazepines for seizure activity? Some of the drugs relationships you described in the article are more than likely dependence and not addiction. I do not believe it is possible to become addicted to pain-killers in two weeks time if taking anywhere near the recommended dose. Two weeks is barely enough time for one to become dependent, but your point is taken. My question regarding the benzodiazepine was real-- it is something that was started at childhood, and now there is a physical dependence-- not having it = emergency room visit and this is concerning.
they need to do more research into cannabidiol, but it looks promising.
who said pot was only meant for getting high?
Epilepsy is an extremely challenging condition,
as indeed there are many kinds of epilepsy--
so the most important question is what type of
epilepsy you are dealing with..and then it becomes
a difficult process (many times involving trial and error)
to determine exactly what drug (or combination of drugs)
is most effective, what dosage works best,
how to manage side effects, etc., etc. etc.
In general, when other effective drugs can be found,
benzodiazepines, although good in the short term,
are not favored for long term use.
All anticonvulsant drugs have substantial
to serious side effects, and must be very
carefully monitored in long term use.
The rapid development of computer tomographic
PET scan technology over the last few years
has made light-year advances in the localization
and characterization of epileptic foci.
With these diagnostic advances,
neurosurgical approaches to epilepsy have
also made major strides in terms of precision
and effectiveness.
Although PET scan technology started in
the 1950's, the combination of PET scan
and computer tomography (CT_PET) did
not occur until around 2000, and the resulting
rapid evolution of commercially available
equipment since then has not been
short of phenomenal.
I do not know natural alternatives and there are many types of epilepsy.
Addiction is quite fascinating, too. I have attended a few lectures. Suffice it to say that there are two main components. The first is of course exposure to the drug. The second is genetic and the effect the drug will have on an individual. Taking cocaine will not have the same effect on everyone. Some will be essentially addicted from the first experience as they get a very powerful positive, yet usually diminishing effect. Others, not so much and they could handle occassional use. It is the same for alcohol and other potentially addictive chemicals. Talk to people who take various pain meds like the scheduled agents and you will find some hate them and all it did was make them sick, usually nauseated. Others get a bit of a thrill or wonderful sedation...something strongly positive and appealing.
Another aspect is psychological addiction. Sleep aids would be a good example. You really don't get physically addiction to something like zolpidem/Ambien. However, you can fear even trying to sleep without one, so much so that it would add to your insomnia not to have it. People can get mentally dependent on something, as well.
[Taking cocaine will not have the same effect on everyone. Some will be essentially addicted from the first experience as they get a very powerful positive, yet usually diminishing effect. Others, not so much and they could handle occassional use.]......cocaine and amphetamines/central stimulants/"speed" are pharmacologically very different from other drugs of addiction in that they permanently deplete certain
neurotransmitters*, particularly dopamine. Since the primary action of these neurotransmitters is inhibitory, their reduction results in disinhibition of neural firing. The effect of use of these drugs is cumulative, and reptitive use leads to stepwise degradation of neurotransmitter inhibitory function, which in turn leads to unregulated/uncontrolled neural firing-- a type of "kindled" limbic epilepsy (since the primary areas affected are parts of the limbic system). One explanation for the initially different effect in different persons is that the levels of these neurotransmitters are widely variable in different individuals, and also with age. In any case, due to this specific inevitable pharmacological action (neurotransmitter-destruction) of the central stimulants, the use this class of drugs can not safely be legalized and regulated in the same manner as, say marijuana, or even heroin. (One thing that might be mentioned, however, is that in true cases of juvenile attention deficit disorder, as well as for narcolepsy, low dosage methamphetamine is the most effective therapy.)
* refer to the extensive research by Lew Seiden and Bob Schuster.
Pretty much correct. You are either in medicine or you are looking up good references. The permanent impairment or depletion is what leads to using ever greater doses and trying to get that first high, again. It is different for different individuals. It also depends on age at first use. For example teen years are often when people start smoking. Brains are not fully developed. Smoking at this age alters neurodevelopment and can more or less hard wire the person for permanent addiction. It is much harder for those who start smoking at an early age to quit than those who start later in life.
The other thing which probably played into Robin Williams' suicide is that those permanent depletions and neuro-remodeling have permanent effects. A person unwittingly makes themselves depressed for the rest of their lives. I believe this plays into many of the suicides and lifelong chemical abuse problems you see in Hollywood types. They use it early on and pay for it forever.
Used to be in alcohol, but now I prefer physical excaustion, cycling, running etc...
"
30 Million Americans On Antidepressants"
how many pot smoker in jail to keep the anti-d business & control tool on float ?
Whre only the 1% are allowed the rewards from the current system, what else is there for the 99% apart from prescription drugs?
The Pharmacheutical Industry: Talmudic "Medicine" at its Finest.
Where masking the symptoms and exacerbating the cause - for repeat business - is the name of the game. (That's, of course, if it doesn't kill you first.)
And when no disease/disorder exists, invent one (see ADHD/Ritalin) - with the added bonus of lobotomizing the goyim in the process.
Walk away - if you can't run - from the pharma-scam and the ObamaCare shakedown (where the "Care" is strictly into the coffers of Big Pharma)
"Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.... If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool" - Hippocrates
Can we take it that with the high % of americans addicted to these 'legal' substances many if nnot the the most comments here. by usa posters, are made when under the influence of said substances, intoxicated while commenting. It would figure, explain the reason for the nature of much of the content. ;-)
Thieves today are crafty, and picky too. They follow seniors home from the pharmacy. The medicine cabinet is the 1st stop, the nightstand is number 2. Cash? Not even in the thought processes.
Maybe we also need some stats about the increase in doomsday blogs, they make people nervous so they take to drugs to calm themselves down ...
And meanwhile....
States that have approved medical mj have seen reductions in opiate overdose deaths of a third. But yeah, keep buying those "safe" drugs that are approved by the FDA.
If everybody read the entire warning label of even the most innocuous drugs, they would never take anything:
MAY CAUSE BLINDNESS, IMPOTENCE, PSYCHOSIS, SUICIDAL FEELINGS, LIVER DAMAGE, KIDNEY DAMAGE, LOSS OF HAIR, LOSS OF APPETITE, NAUSEA, DIARRHEA, CONSTIPATION, DIZZINESS, BLURRED VISION, RASH, ORAL THRUSH, PANIC ATTACKS, SHORTNESS OF BREATH, NASAL CONGESTION, HEADACHE, MUSCLE SPASMS, FETAL DAMAGE IN PREGNANT WOMEN, ENLARGED PROSTATE, ACCELERATED HEART BEAT, CHEST PAIN, AND A WHOLE LOT OF OTHER SHIT. UNSUBSTANTIATED ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT IT MAY CAUSE IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE AND AROUSAL OF ANIMAL SPIRITS.
Please enjoy our drug, it will help with your other symptoms.
"They trusted that their doctors would never prescribe something for them that would be harmful"
Like sheep to the slaughter. Death by doctor is the leading cause of death in America.
Silver For The People
Addiction to pain pills is caused by toxic discomfort at first and then the withdrawal from the drug only adds to the original toxic discomfort. No gain on the play. Opiate drugs have little pain killing effect after a few days.
A popular antidepressant, Prozac is 93% toxic fluoride. I would want to commit suicide too if I had to detox fluoride. Few realize that the public gets captured and mind controlled by toxins placed in our food, water and medicine. Our hidden rulers, the Jesuits and their Zionist agents use poisons to control us. Toxic injury produces depression, anxiety, lethargy and a blind allegiance to the establishment because of this subtle helpless, handicapped state.
That's why it's crucial that we stop this capturing process by taking back our medicine, food and water from these Jesuit manipulators. Educate yourself about toxic vaccines, pesticides, GMO food, fluoridated water, aspertame and many more poisons designed to disable our health. Go to naturalnews.com, mercola.com and anh-usa.com to empower yourself and avoid being mind-controlled by this powerful organized crime cabal posing as a religious order. See these videos for more details.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F31TmQ9GwU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB3xcN_eoPo
oops
come on man...quit giving so much credit to "zionists and Jesuits" there all kinds of other evil groups out there who are causing enormous pain and heartache...ISIS, Russians, Crazy Ukrainians, non-jewish bankers, Saudi oil monarchs, Chi-comms, Perverted politicians, etc.
We use to blame it all on the "masons" etc...now the big fashion is an anti-semitic kick. Got news for you Obama may be alot of things but he ain't Jewish.
Think bigger...widen the circle. The whole world is F'd up with tons of assholes and plenty of blame.
This article calls out "prescriptive" drugs. If I go over to Juarez I can pick up all kinds of stuff I can't get here without an Rx. If I go to Florida, I can get a dubious Dr. to write scripts for anything I want.
The article hits on the aging demographics of the US. I've been told getting old is Not for the faint of heart or for wusses.
I'm finding that to be truer by the day. Offing oneself because of age, pain or any other plethora of reasons is, has been and continues to be an act of supreme selfishness. If one has extended family, especially.
Other than dying for a reason, accident or other natural causes, the morality of death has to play into the situation. I live with daily pain as a result of an auto accident, (was hit from behind while stopped in AM traffic by a distracted grandma doing 55-60) and as much as I hate the side effects, those little white pills offer symptomatic relief at best, but it IS symptomatic relief.
I try to balance on again / off again, diet /nutrition, physical activity / rest, wine / water, Bible study and ZH to continue to progress to my own personal conclusion. I'm not always successful in the blend and it's those closest to me that pay for my maladjustments, but to short circuit the process by falling on my sword would be most tragic indeed. jmo.
Give me Librium or give me Meth.
While watching one of the millions of ad's encouraging Americans to "visit their doctor" about getting the latest and best drug available, I had an interesting thought. It appears that we are on our way to giving everyone that wants them the latest mood drug, or anything that will create an up beat and positive buzz.
Many will even go so far as to say that people "deserve" them if these "wonder pills" are an ingredient in the recipe to happiness. While few can deny that many of these drugs are expensive, and often under tested, they will keep the masses happy and docile. A strange cultural phenomena that I have a hard time understanding is how mentally attached people are to their drugs. More on our need for these silly little pills in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/07/mood-altering-drugs-for-everyone....
wonder what a country without lobbyists would look like?
How am I supposed to maintain my composure without some help?
How am I supposed to maintain my composure without some help?
One person commits suicide every 40 seconds: WHO http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/1-front-top-news/192664-one-person-com...
And now the fun part because I think the excessive use of antidepressants has something to do with it. You can’t simply stop with a lot of antidepressants, which a lot of them seem to do, without going in an even bigger hole now with suicide risk.
But don’t worry because you can’t sue them while they’ve put it on the so-called medicine “black box” warning, that “these medications increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in kids”
Fat poor woman can't sue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uQlB99WCuk
Higher Doses of Antidepressants & Suicidal Behavior http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20140428/higher-doses-of-antidep...
So if your kid dies after taking these antidepressants big pharma will say: “We told you so”, it was in the’black box’. Your bet.
Wonder why they call it ‘black box warning’, maybe it’s because you don’t suppose to find it?
Or because you end up in a ‘Black Box’ because of reading it? Sounds ridiculous, I know, but yet from the propaganda channel:
‘Black Box’ Warning on Antidepressants Raised Suicide Attempts http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/black-box-warning-antidepressa...
So big pharma is essentially saying, we rather not tell you that it kills you because if we do, it kills you but we do tell you that it kills you because otherwise you sue us, and it kills anyways. A win-win situation and quite profitable.
Disclaimer Disclaimer: After reading this antidepressant ‘Black Box Warning’ some might want to kill him- or her-self.medication
tranquilisation
this is the Age Of Sedation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBZv2v0S4E4