[geeks] Psychotropics aka anti-depressants, etc

[N.Miller]

On Wednesday, July 23, 2003, at 09:44 AM, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 09:17:13AM -0700, N. Miller wrote:
>
>> Harris, from Columbine, was on Luvox.  He was rejected from enlisting
>>    in the Marines because of Ritalin use--kids who've *ever* been on
>>    Ritalin/psychotropics will not be accepted into the military.
>
> Can you provide a source for that, and am I correct in recalling that
> Prozac counts as psychotropic?

A source for which part?  If you want to know about Harris,
just search google for luvox, columbine, and harris.  It's the
easiest to find because of the lawsuit filed against the pharm
co.

I haven't found a first hand (i.e. a statement from the military)
that excludes people on Ritalin, etc., did find this: "Ritalin
will preclude a child from ever joining the United States military
because Ritalin is classified as a Class II controlled substance."
<http://www.bio-medical.com/news_display.cfm?mode=EEG&newsid=14>
(Concerning another lawsuit filed against a pharm co and CHADD.)

This jives with my recent readings of the changing standards in
the Army about substance use such as alcohol (multiple DUI's can
exclude you from enlistment) and tobacco use and abuse.  For
instance, smoking is no longer allowed during basic training *at
all*.  Testing positive for any drug in your basic training in-bound
urinalysis will get you booted out, even though the results don't
come back until like week six of basic.  I think the military has
figured out the cost of health problems, PR, etc associated with
these behaviors.

And, yes, all SSRI's (fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft),
paroxetine (Paxil), fluvoxamine (Luvox) and citalopram (Celexa))
on the Class II list of controlled substances, which is probably
a better classifier than "psychotropic", since I couldn't find a
good definition of that anywhere.  I don't know if MAOI's
(phenelzine (Nardil), tranylcypromine (Parnate), Seligiline
(Eldepryl), and isocarboxazid (Marplan)) are on the Class II list
or not.

I would be much more inclined to take an MAOI if I was having
depression/anxiety issues than an SSRI, given what I've been
reading of late, even though there are other problems with MAOI's.

Jon Rappoport is an independent reporter that has covered the
violence->prescription drug use issue extensively.

This is a summary I found at The Atlantic:

"The Ritalin Generation

A study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine
has revealed that the number of youths in this country taking
prescribed psychotropic drugsin other words, drugs that alter
behavior, emotion,
or perceptionincreased by as much as 300 percent overall from 1987 to
1996. Youths (defined by the study as being under the age of twenty)
used psychotropic drugs almost as often as adults do now. The most
pronounced increases 700 percent among youths on Medicaid, and 1,400
percent among youths enrolled in HMOscame in the use of amphetamines
(mainly dextroamphetamine sulfate, which is used to treat attention
deficit disorder). Antidepressants were the second most commonly
prescribed medication. More anti-anxiety medications were prescribed
for young people in HMOs than for those on Medicaid, which may suggest
either that more-affluent children have the luxury of being anxious or
that poorer children are being undertreated.

"Psychotropic Practice Patterns for Youth: A 10-Year Perspective,"
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 157 [This article
is not publicly available on the Web.]"

The other thing that a lot of folks don't know is that the federal
government gives subsidies to schools for kids identified as "at
risk"...do you think that a kid id'd as ADD/ADHD is "at risk"? :-/

=Nadine=