Drugging Our Children
October 20, 2006 at 3:22 am | Posted in Drugs | 8 CommentsDude, what is with our nation and its love of pharmaceutical drugs? Apparently now there is talk about giving Ritalin to preschooers! How early do we want our children to be hooked on drugs? How early do we want our society to rely on drugs as a crutch, without apparently caring about the side-effects of changing the chemical composition of our bodies? We take drugs to get us to go to sleep, meanwhile we drink coffee and sodas—filled with caffeine—all day long and then wonder why we can’t sleep. We feed our infants fake meals instead of breastmilk, designed specifically for the child’s needs and then wonder why they don’t grow up well. We eat plenty of foods, so much so that we are now overweight, and then wonder why we need to rely on drugs to fix the consequences of overeating when we could be just fine if we but excercise. I’m done ranting. I think this direction is bad for America. We need to get to a more natural state.
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one of my good friends in the USA, had a rough time in his teen years with drugs. I asked him how he ever got himself involved with them. He said that when he was younger in Primary School he started failing at his school work. His parents sent him to a psychologist who put him on pills for depression .. a Primary age school kid.
I was flabbergasted.
Comment by Trudy— October 20, 2006 #
We’ll be giving Ritalin to pre-schoolers so long as our national culture of instant gratification demands it. Nobody wants to hear the doctor say “you suck as a parent” or “your kid is just a jerk”; they want a pill that makes it all better.
Comment by Jesse— October 22, 2006 #
My stepson was on Ritalin by the time he was three years old. Bill and I married when Jared was five, and I was appalled that they were giving drugs to this kid. Three weeks later, a true believer, I was meeting him at the door with a pill and a glass of water. He would have never have made it through elementary school without Ritalin.
His first grade teacher didn’t believe he needed drugs, so at her urging, we stopped the drugs. She thought she could work with him. Six miserable weeks later, she called us and told us she was completely losing him in school and asked us to resume the drug.
He stopped when he was 15, he just refused to take it anymore. He dropped out of school and started self medicating with marijuana and alcohol.
I don’t think he got into drugs and alcohol because we drugged him as a child. I think we held off his problems with the drug.
I don’t hold with wholesale dispensing of drugs to children, but I saw first hand the good it did for Jared.
I don’t think Ritalin makes addicts of kids. I think kids with mental problems self medicate when they get older.
The funny thing now is that Jared won’t use a drug such as Prozac, but he drinks a six pack every day, and uses all kinds of illegal drugs.
Comment by annegb— October 22, 2006 #
Jesse,
Right on. We’re a nation that no longer seems willing to take responsibility for our own actions, or realize that some things come at a cost, that some things are painful in life.
Anne,
I’m sorry to hear that about your step-son. It is hard to have to deal with such problems. Unfortunately, because he is now drinking heavily and using illegal drugs (whether or not it is related to his use of drugs from the start), he continues the cycle. I’m not as familiar with ADHD as others, but I looked at a definition to find the causes:
Many causes seem to be the addition into the body of children things that affect the brain in a negative way, such as sugars, cigarettes, lead, and one thing that researchers haven’t yet looked at (which I would like to ask of doctors) is the amount of drugs taken by the mother throughout her life. What kind of effect does the addition of medication into the mother affect the child not yet conceived? Does medication that a mother takes in her entire life vanish away from her body? Does her body carry anything that might then go into her baby when she gets pregnant?
We take drugs and medication with such ease before we even consider the possible long-term side effects of taking things that are not originally meant for us to take.
I worry about the future of our humanity with all the additional chemicals we keep plugging into our bodies.
Comment by Daniel— October 23, 2006 #
ooooooooooo my god u r so right Way to get ur feelings out there
Comment by ranene— October 31, 2006 #
well anyways sugar is basically the same as putting a knife to our childre’s throat and slitting it in half. Becuase those are the same results
Comment by ranene— October 31, 2006 #
This web site explains all the ins and outs of the psychopharmaceutical industrial complex’s infiltration into our US school system and what is being done about it. This is what is really going on.
Comment by Sandra— November 1, 2006 #
Sandra,
Thank you for sharing that website. Clearly the pharmaceutical industry, much like the tobacco industry, likes to start their “customers” early to ensure continued use.
Comment by Daniel— November 1, 2006 #