Psychiatric Drugs, Alcohol and Illicit Drugs - By Bruce Levine

[Guest guest]

The following is the full text of Bruce Levine's article, " Psychiatric

Drugs, Alcohol and Illicit Drugs " which was published originally in the

March issue of the " Z-Magazine "

http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/levine.shtml

Magazine Commentary -- Health

March 2002

Psychiatric Medications, Illicit, Drugs, & Alcohol

By Bruce Levine

The article titled " Pay Attention: Ritalin Acts Much Like Cocaine " was

published in August 2001 in the Journal of the American Medical Association

(JAMA). It's not likely you've heard about it. Pharmaceutical companies do

their best to ensure we hear something altogether different, something like

this: " Psychiatric medication -- just like insulin -- restores the chemical

imbalances that cause mental illness. " To get that message across, they

spend billions of dollars on TV commercials. They also spend billions of

dollars on drug representative visits to doctors' offices, advertisements in

medical journals, and seminars for doctors. Pharmaceutical companies even

help fund the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance for

the Mentally Ill, and other mental health institutions. Nearly one in four

American adults are taking prescription psychotropic drugs, while America's

" war on drugs " has led to more people imprisoned in the United States (in

total and per ca- pita) than any other industrialized nation.

If psychiatric drugs are chemically similar to illicit drugs and alcohol,

and if all of these substances are used for similar purposes, then hypocrisy

has created two ongoing tragedies: (1) an unfair incarceration of millions

of Americans (mostly poor and without health insurance) for using illicit

drugs, and (2) a denial of the societal realities for why millions more

Americans (mostly not poor and with health insurance) are using psychiatric

drugs. Do psychiatric medications in fact restore chemical imbalances that

cause mental illness? Are psychiatric medications analogous to insulin? Or

are psychiatric drugs more like illicit drugs and alcohol?

While we know insulin can temporarily restore a chemical imbalance for a

diabetic, we have no such scientific knowledge that any psychiatric drug

restores a chemical imbalance for someone having emotional difficulties. We

don't even have scientific proof that mental disorders are caused by

chemical imbalances. In 1998 the National Institutes of Health acknowledged

that there is no known chemical imbalance -- or any known biological basis

-- for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and in 2000 the

American Academy of Pediatrics confirmed this. Your doctor will tell you

that neither a tab test nor a physical exam is used to diagnose ADHD, which

is in fact determined on the basis of behavior checklists. The chemical

imbalance theory of ADHD is just that -- a theory.

For years we've heard that depression was caused by neurotransmitter

imbalances. We were told that depression was linked to too little

norepinephrine, and that drugs like Tofranil and Elavil would restore this

imbalance. But in the late 1980s, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

(SSRIs) such as Prozac (and later Zoloft and Paxil) hit the market. We were

then told that depression was caused by too little serotonin. Recently,

there's been a TV commercial blitz for a non-SSRI antidepressant Wellbutrin,

which enhances the neurotransmitter dopamine. Why this jumping around?

Science has not linked the cause of depression to any biochemical imbalance,

as was made abundantly clear by Elliot Valenstein, professor emeritus of

Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, in his book Blaming the Brain

(1998). Comparing psychiatric drugs to insulin is like comparing apples to

oranges. No one disagrees that psychiatric drugs can sometimes temporarily

provide relief from symptoms. However, so do illicit drugs and alcohol --

which, according to Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center (a

drug-policy research institute) " represent a form of self-medication against

physical and emotional pain among people who do not have access to

psychotherapy or Prozac. "

If you want to compare apples to apples, compare psychiatric drugs to

illicit drugs and alcohol. JAMA's proclamation in 2001 that " Ritalin Acts

Much Like Cocaine " shouldn't have been a revelation. Thirty years ago, the

World Health Organization compared Ritalin to cocaine. Why? ADHD drugs such

as Ritalin, Adderall, and Dexedrine affect the same neurotransmitters as

cocaine; and ADHD drugs and cocaine are both classified by the DEA as

Schedule 11 psychostimulants (Schedule 11 drugs are legal drugs that have

the highest potential for abuse and addiction). Researchers have also

confirmed that the clinical effects of these ADHD drugs are

indistinguishable from cocaine if both are similarly administered. A Primer

of Drug Action (1998) notes this about the ADHD drug Dexedrine: " Individuals

who have used cocaine have difficulty distinguishing between the subjective

effects of 8 to 10 milligrams of cocaine and 10 milligrams of

dextroamphetamine [Dexedrine] when both are administered intravenously. "

Many are upset to discover that SSRI drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil

have much in common with Ecstasy. SSRIs enhance serotonin -- also enhanced

by Ecstasy (which increases serotonin by a somewhat different mechanism and

has a quicker and more intense " pop " ). Throughout the 1990s we were told by

drug companies that SSRIs were neither dangerous nor habit forming. However,

in 2000 Harvard Medical School psychiatrist ph Glenmullen reported that

SSRIs are linked to neurological disorders indicating potential brain

damage, and he noted: " Withdrawal syndromes -- which can be debilitating --

are estimated to affect up to 50% of patients. " Thus, not only is there no

evidence that SSRIs (or any other psychiatric drug) restore chemical

imbalances, the withdrawal effect of these drugs is actually evidence that

they create chemical imbalances.

The withdrawal effects of the benzodiazapine tranquilizers such as Xanax,

Ativan, or Klonopin are exactly the same as those of alcohol (e.g.,

shakiness, loss of appetite, muscle cramps, memory and concentration

problems, insomnia, agitation, and anxiety). Not only are the clinical and

withdrawal effects of benzodiazapines the same as alcohol, so are the

biochemical effects, as both work on the body's GABA system.

When psychiatric drugs produce symptom relief, they work the same way

illicit drugs and alcohol do: They " take the edge off. " When you are taking

prescription psychotropic drugs like Ritalin, Paxil, or Xanax, or you are

using illicit psychotropic drugs or alcohol, your emotional experience is

dampened. Your boredom, frustration, hurt, and anger are less intense. You

care less about what you are feeling and you care even less about what

others are feeling. For some people, this helps them function. If you talk

to an honest psychiatric drug user, an honest illicit drug user, or an

honest alcohol user, you'll hear the same thing: " It worked, for a while, by

taking the edge off. " However, you'll also often hear this: " Eventually, I

needed more to achieve the same ends. "

Pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars attempting to

convince us that psychiatric drugs are just another kind of medicine and to

accept their version of what's reasonable. Their version goes something like

this: " While some medicines do turn out to be dangerous and other good

medicines can be over-prescribed, it is extremist to say that psychiatric

medications don't have their appropriate use. " This version of what's

reasonable would be correct if we were talking about nonpsychiatric

medications. However, the history of psychiatric drugs is far different than

the history of nonpsychiatric medications. In the history of psychiatric

drugs, all are ultimately found to be either (a) highly addictive, as

evidenced by withdrawal; ( highly ineffective, compared to a proper

placebo; © highly dangerous, in terms of short-term or long-term adverse

effects; (d) all of the above. When one realizes that psychiatric drugs are

-- chemically and clinically -- in the same category as illicit drugs and

alcohol, then the pharmaceutical companies' version of what's reasonable

becomes unreasonable.

Calling psychiatric drugs medicine while at the same time labeling illicit

drugs and alcohol as poisons is a triumph of sorts. It is a triumph of

marketing over science and a triumph of injustice over compassion. It is

also a triumph of denial and evasion. By this hypocritical labeling process,

we can deny the devastating societal impact of a corporate hegemony that

worships markets rather than life, because we've been " enabled " to evade

this question: Why do increasingly more of us need to take the edge off?

The Avenging Angel

Please sign the petitions at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/lilpro

http://www.petitiononline.com/oky71.html

http://www.petitiononline.com/effexor

Please report all adverse drug reactions to:

http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/index.html

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