In recent years, the so-called pharma parties have become increasingly popular among American teenagers. Their participants bring with them whole handfuls of pills, mainly psychotropic drugs and antipsychotics, and pour them into a common large bowl. Later it remains only to take them from there and drink alcohol under the roar of music.
Of course, when using this kind of "dope", there are often cases of overdose, including fatal. So parents of high school students overseas are increasingly being advised to hide medicines under lock and key.
Antidepressants are everywhere
In general, Americans are confidently holding the first place in the world in terms of drug use. The United States accounts for nearly a third of their purchases worldwide, worth over $ 300 billion a year. That said, the top three most frequently prescribed drugs in the States include easily addictive antidepressants and opioid pain relievers, which allows experts to say that the nation is deeply addicted to legal drugs.
In the United States, with a population of about 320 million people, 250 million antidepressant prescriptions are prescribed annually, according to research firm IMS Health. For example, among women from 40 to 50 years old, one in four is on antidepressants.
Back in 1994, the autobiographical book of journalist Elizabeth Wurzel "Prozac Nation" (Prozac is one of the most common antidepressants) instantly became a national bestseller in the United States, because every third American could recognize himself in the main character of the novel. Since then, the situation has only worsened - over the past 20 years, sales of antidepressants in the United States have grown by 400%.
Medical journalist Brittany Stepniak says:
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- Because of the massive advertising and untidiness of pharmaceutical companies, Americans have a completely wrong idea about the action and possible consequences of the most popular antidepressants - Zoloft, Prozac and Selectsa. The terrible truth is that oftentimes the negative side effects outweigh the benefits of medication. According to independent studies, a positive result is achieved in only 30% of cases.
Now compare with the list of side effects: weight gain, insomnia, nightmares, headache, dizziness, vision problems. Almost everyone taking these pills has a decrease in libido, up to a complete disorder of sexual function. And often, long-term use of antidepressants leads to even deeper depression.
Now it comes to the point that antidepressants can cause … an environmental catastrophe. Traces of medication have been found in some American waters. In particular, the same Prozac. And this is by no means the consequences of some man-made disasters. The point is different. Medicines end up in rivers along with sewage.
The concentration of these drugs in the body of many Americans is such that the drugs cease to be properly absorbed and pass through the body. Treatment facilities - filters and biological treatment complexes - are not adapted to contain this kind of pollution.
Benzodiazepines are relatives of heroin
Recently, a huge scandal erupted in the United States and Great Britain: it turns out that back in 1982, scientists warned that the use of tranquilizers, or, more simply, sedatives, leads to the same brain changes as chronic alcoholism. Then a large-scale study of this effect was planned, but for some unknown reason the scientists did not receive the necessary funding.
Moreover, taking popular sedatives from the benzodiazepine class for four or more weeks leads to the same physiological addiction as when using heroin. Side effects are appropriate: hallucinations, headaches, convulsions and even death.
- The burning sensation is as if a bare wire was stuck into your spinal cord - a piercing pain goes through the spine to the tips of the fingers and toes, - a patient who uses benzodiazepines describes his feelings.
Benzodiazepines are related to heroin by the following feature: it is almost impossible to get off them.
“It was as if someone was shouting in my head: take more, more, more of these pills,” a patient named Rita, who was trying to refuse the medicine, shares her impressions. - I was so deeply depressed that I cut my veins. But I don't even remember how I did it.
“With the abrupt withdrawal of these medications, there is a high risk of epileptic seizures, stroke, heart attack and hallucinations,” confirms Dr. Stephen Melimis. - You wake up in a cold sweat, and you are pounding as if your heart is about to jump out of your chest. And it usually starts quite innocently: because of the stress at work, the doctor prescribes a sedative for you. A couple of days and you feel great. After a week or two, the stress at work repeats, and you again take benzodiazepines, and again for only a few days. But troubles at work are becoming more common, and after a few months you find yourself swallowing pills every day.
The problem is that tranquilizers are prescribed for nerve disorders and insomnia, but the longer you drink them, the more you get nervous and sleep worse. This means that you need to increase the dose all the time. The final stage of benzodiazepine addiction doctors call depersonalization, which is expressed in a loss of interest in life and often leads to suicide.
Painkillers
A fair share of prescription pain relievers in the United States doesn't just look like drugs. These drugs are, in fact, drugs. According to the government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so many opioid pain relievers are sold annually in the United States that for a month, the entire adult population of the country can receive a potentially lethal dose of the semi-synthetic opioid hydrocodone every day.
So it’s no surprise that 15,000 Americans die from overdose of painkillers every year - more than heroin and cocaine combined.
Where drugs, even legal ones, crime blooms every time. And a couple of years ago, the Florida drug police, as a result of a special operation, covered a network of one-day clinics. The work of the "pill factories" was built according to an extremely simple scheme: throughout the state for a short, sometimes just a few days, so that the police did not have time to react - so-called Pain Centers were opened, the only function of which was to sell prescriptions for pain relievers … It was theoretically possible to buy a prescription from the "pill factory" in any pharmacy, but the organizers strongly recommended doing this only in trusted places so that the criminal scheme would not arouse suspicion for longer.
This investigation opened the eyes of the Americans to two unpleasant facts. First, up to 70% of opioid pain relievers go straight to the black market. Second: the drug mafia has found a new niche for itself and has included pharmacies in its sphere of activity. As a result, about 12 million Americans today use painkillers for non-medical purposes, sales of legal opioids have quadrupled in the first ten years of the new century, and the number of deaths from their overdose has increased by the same number. The annual number of ambulance calls related to taking and overdosing painkillers has exceeded half a million.
A panacea for ADHD?
Carried away by such controversial treatment of adults with psychoactive drugs, Americans do not disregard children. In this case, we are primarily talking about drugs for ADHD - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. They supposedly improve the performance of children who do poorly in school.
Over the past 10 years, the diagnosis of ADHD has doubled. And now a third of American parents believe that their children will do better on ADHD medications, even if their heads are fine.
At the same time, psychoactive medications act on a fragile child's psyche in the most unpredictable way. One study found that in 14% of young people taking antidepressants causes recurrent bouts of aggression. A 12-year-old study participant often dreamed about killing his classmates first, and then himself. Extremely realistic nightmares continued until the boy stopped taking the pills.
And Betty Henderson's Internet portal, Stories of Antidepressants, has collected information that in most cases of unpredictable explosions of school violence, juvenile delinquents took psychoactive drugs. Shooting at a school in Alabama November 7, 2011 - The perpetrator was drinking medication for depression and ADHD. Hostage-taking at a New York school on November 9, 2010 - a young scoundrel was taking antidepressants. Murder at a school in Massachusetts on April 28, 2010 - again after taking medication for depression and ADHD.
So the treatment is strange. For both adults and children. And this problem is peculiar not only to the United States, but there it was highlighted in a particularly vivid way.
Valdis PEYPINSH