Question Of The Week, 1/28/07

Good morning. I came home from work last night with an idea for this weeks question. I was going to check on a couple of things and then get to work on getting it posted. I made it to the on-line version of my local paper. I found what I thought was a very interesting article, and it ask a question.

From the St. Joseph News-Press


Are we becoming a drugged society?

Alonzo Weston
Reporter/Columnist

She came from a family with a history of long, wholesome living. A constitutionally strong woman with a good career, a good marriage and a good life. But good wasn't good enough.

"One bright, spring day this 42-year-old wife and mother of a 12-year-old daughter put her head down and died," Jeff Davidson remembered about his college friend's wife.

His friend's wife also was a woman who took a pill whenever she experienced any type of stress or anxiety. A woman who ended up dying with a handful of pills, hoping to make the good life even better.

Mr. Davidson, a North Carolina author and management lecturer, said he sees our society becoming just as dependent on drugs to alter our moods and make us feel better.

There is a free-floating sense that many of us have become the "worried well," as "Listening to Prozac" author Peter Kramer dubbed antidepressant users in the early 1990s.

We put our kids on Ritalin. We put on minds on cruise control with Prozac. There is a fear we're comfortably numb and not really our true selves.

Are we becoming a drugged society?

"I wish it weren't true, but the rate at which people turn to 'medication' as some type of temporary or long-term antidote for the stresses of living and working in contemporary society is alarming," Mr. Davidson said.

Local mental-health professionals also expressed concern over the growing number of youths and adults on behavioral medications. They say in some cases, the drugs are truly needed to cope with certain mental illnesses, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But more and more medicines are being prescribed to help persons merely cope with the stresses of an ever-changing world.

And those stresses can be triggered by anything from a lack of sunshine, to a lack of sleep, to lawn chemicals, to the drugs we took in our youth, to trying to keep up with the Joneses, said Dr. Shirley Taylor, a licensed psychologist with Heartland Health Counseling Services.

"It's lifestyle as much as anything," she said. "Other countries aren't using as many drugs as we are and I guess I don't necessarily believe if we are on drugs we are not us. Or, if that's true, I'm still very happy that many people do take medication because it makes them more able to live a normal life."

She added that the increase in use of behavioral drugs may be due to medical professionals being more adept at diagnosing mental illness and emotional disorders. "We did not correctly identify people who could have been helped with medications in the past, and so they fell through the cracks somehow," Dr. Taylor said.

Eileen Duty said that when she became a St. Joseph School District nurse 24 years ago, schools hardly, if ever, gave medicine to students. But today, some kids are given medicine twice a day and some not just for health problems - such as asthma - but for behavioral problems.

Ritalin has been prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. But in the past five years, Mrs. Duty has seen an increase in mood-altering medicines like Prozac being prescribed for students.

"Somebody might say to me, 'Do you think that is wrong?' What I would say is we're hoping this would be considered best practice or best treatment for this child's identified problem so that they can learn in school and they can get along with other kids," she said.

The St. Joseph School District is concerned about the long-term effects of these medications, she said.

"Some of the medicines that the kids are taking have not been tested on children for the long term and it is worrisome," she said. "We worry about it, the school nurses worry about the number of kids that are on medicines and the long-term effects."

Dr. Emad Khan, board certified adult and child psychiatrist with Northwest Health Services, said he asks several questions of his patients before prescribing behavior drugs. He said that many times, behavioral problems have to do more with environment than with a medical condition. And many times that environmental condition can be traced to the womb.

"If during pregnancy that mom took marijuana, smoked, drank, suffered stress, then that kid is going to have concentration problems, poor coping skills and poor impulse control because alcohol and marijuana can cause fetal alcohol syndrome," he said. "Any stress during pregnancy, or if you smoked during that time, the blood supply to the placenta is less than with a mom who is relaxed."

Dr. Khan said the fast pace of today's world is another factor. Not only does the urgency cause stress for parents, but for their children as well. And they are stressors that we didn't experience 50 years ago.

"For whatever reason, the fabric of our society, the world in general has become such a competitive place," he said. "Your parents or grandparents were not exposed to so much stress, so much competition."

Dr. Khan said before he prescribes any behavior medication, he suggests relaxation techniques and other remedies. And in most cases, he never prescribes medicine without therapy. "If you are a good, trained psychiatrist you would always think of other ways to treat these problems before resorting to medication," he said. "That's what I do, especially in child psychiatry."


It's like I was meant to use this article for this weeks question, that's why it was published on a Sunday morning. This weeks Question Of The Week is. Are we becoming a drugged society? I'll post my answer in the Comment Section Monday morning.

Thanks go to:

The St. Joseph News-Press

God Bless America, God Save The Republic