so BAN DRUGS and blame pharmaceuticals for pushing the use of this crap , rather than guns and gun manufacturers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Drugs related to mass killings

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/13533556p-14137410c.html

The Modesto Bee
Role of antidepressants in killings needs review
By TY PHILLIPS
April 29, 2007

The murderous rampage that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech has
stirred countless emotions: sadness and anger, fear and hatred, grief
and disgust.
When Dr. Ann Blake Tracy heard the details, she felt many of those same
emotions. Yet there is one sentiment Tracy does not share with much of
the rest of the world: surprise. As terrible as it sounds, after nearly
20 years researching links between violent crime, suicide and
antidepressants, Tracy is surprised only that it doesn’t happen more
often.

Details continue to emerge about the lonely life of killer Seung-Hui
Cho, who had a history of mental illness. Among Cho’s effects,
officials found prescription medications related to the treatment of
psychological problems.

Though it’s still premature to draw conclusions without toxicology
results, these are the details Tracy, an author and the executive
director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness, expected
from the moment she heard about the Virginia Tech shootings. In her
experience, when it comes to investigating high-profile shootings,
antidepressants are as common as the presence of loneliness,
despondence and rage.

“I’m just so tired of seeing people die, I could scream,” Tracy said
during a phone interview. “It’s happening daily in this country. It’s
so massive, it’s just unreal. We’ve got so many school shootings now, I
can’t even begin to keep up with them all. And the reason is so
incredibly obvious. You don’t have to look at much to figure it out.”

2006, Bailey, Colo. ? Duane Morrison shot and killed a girl and
sexually assaulted six others. Antidepressants were found in his
vehicle.

2005, Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minn. ? Jeff Weise shot and killed
nine people and wounded five before committing suicide. Prozac.

1998, Springfield, Ore. ? Kip Kinkel killed his parents, then went to
school and opened fire in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22.
Prozac.

1989, Stockton ? Patrick Purdy used an assault rifle to spray bullets
through a playground at Cleveland Elementary School, killing five
children and wounding 29 people before he killed himself. Elavil.

‘It’s all so intertwined’

There are dozens of other examples of violence at schools and the
presence of antidepressants, but the carnage hardly is limited to our
campuses. Countless families have been destroyed around the world
through homicides and suicides committed by adults on antidepressants.

In June 2001, Texan Andrea Yates drowned her five children under the
influence of four psychiatric medicines, including Effexor.

In February 2004 in Polk Township, Pa., Samantha Hirt, hours after
taking a pill for manic depression, set fire in a bedroom where her two
toddlers were playing, closed the door and sat on a sofa watching
television while the fire spread, killing both children. Effexor.

Other famous cases include the 1998 deaths of actor Phil Hartman and
his wife, a murder/suicide committed by her (Zoloft); the 1999 home and
office killing spree by Atlanta day trader Mark Barton (Prozac); the
1998 shooting deaths of four co-workers by Connecticut lottery
accountant Matthew Beck, who then killed himself (Luvox); and the 1994
New York City subway bombing by Edward Leary, which injured 48
(Prozac).

The list (which can be found at www.drugawareness.org) encompasses
hundreds and hundreds of cases.

“You start linking them together and looking at all the similarities
and you say, ‘Good grief, it’s all so intertwined,’” said Tracy,
who
has appeared on programs including “20/20,” “Dateline” and “60
Minutes”
and served as a consultant on high-profile cases including Columbine
and Andrea Yates. “I keep asking, ‘When is somebody going to see this?’
But we’ve been so brainwashed about drugs, we think legal means safe.

“Most people don’t know LSD once was prescribed as a wonder drug. Most
people don’t know that PCP was considered to have a large margin of
safety in humans. Most people don’t know ecstasy was prescribed and
sold for five years to treat depression. Few know that history of
drugs, and I think that’s our biggest problem. We’re just not educated
enough to have concerns.”

Prozac nation, indeed

The Northern San Joaquin Valley certainly is not immune. Stanislaus
County Coroner Kristi Herr, who has investigated hundreds of the
county’s 4,000 annual deaths, including many accidental overdoses of
prescription medicines, said she regularly goes into homes of deceased
people and finds medicine cabinets loaded with prescription medicines.
Sometimes there are so many pill bottles that large garbage bags are
needed to transport them all.

“It seems to me a large portion of our society is on antidepressants,”
Herr said. “That isn’t based on statistics. That is just based on my
experience of going into homes and evaluating the cases that come
through here.”

In 2003, then-Newman resident Lorraine Slater’s 14-year-old daughter,
Dominique, killed herself after being treated for depression with
several antidepressants, including Celexa and Wellbutrin. As her
depression and erratic behavior worsened, her doctor prescribed her a
double dose of Effexor. Fifteen days later, she was dead. Her body
later was found in the Delta Mendota Canal in Patterson, not far from
the family’s home.

“On the drug, she became more agitated, combative and restless,” Slater
said. “And she had never been like that before. It’s like our daughter
was on LSD. It was a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde experience.”

Shortly after Dominique’s death, the FDA released a warning that one in
50 patients, or 2 percent, will experience an adverse reaction to
Effexor, which can include suicidal thoughts.

Slater has become a consumer advocate working to raise awareness of
possible dangers of antidepressants. On May 9, she will testify at a
hearing at the state Capitol concerning a bill that would require drug
companies to disclose results of all clinical trials.

“We’re not against medication,” Slater said. “We just want disclosure
about results from their trials. In their internal memos, marketers are
told to downplay the side effects, and a lot of doctors aren’t aware of
the real dangers.

“We’re just saying these companies need to give the citizens they’re
supposedly trying to help the information about possible symptoms so
people can make informed decisions. If their medicine is so good, what
is there they have to hide?”

Arguments against link

Of course, the logical argument against tying violent crimes to
antidepressants is that there are countless factors that motivate a
person to commit a violent act.

And those who carry out these deeds often are people with mental
illness, so the presence of antidepressants can be expected. These are
solid points; correlation does not in itself mean causation. And there
is no doubting that countless people have benefited from these drugs.

Still, as one looks at the details of violent crimes around the
country, too often there is an array of antidepressants. At the very
least, this is a topic that deserves greater scrutiny.

In early 2005, the FDA issued a warning that antidepressants can cause
both suicide and violence. The agency also mandated a black-box warning
? the most serious available ? that states these drugs can produce side
effects that include anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, irritability,
hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity and mania.

The FDA also has warned that abrupt withdrawal of antidepressants can
produce suicide, psychosis or hostility.

Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, repeatedly has denied claims that Prozac
causes violence, even though the company’s own documents acknowledge
“nervousness, anxiety, self-mutilation and manic behavior” are among
the “usual adverse effects” of the medicine.

It’s the same Eli Lilly that has paid more than $1.2 billion to 28,000
people who claimed they were injured by the drug Zyprexa during the
past decade, according to a Jan. 5 article in the New York Times.

Paying $1.2 billion over 10 years may sound like a lot of money until
compared with the $4.2 billion the company made last year alone selling
Zyprexa, which has been taken by 20 million people worldwide since its
introduction in 1996.

Most antidepressant drugs, including Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox,
Celexa, Lexapro and Effexor, are known as selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors, which alter brain chemistry in an attempt to manage
depression.

Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, is a chemical that facilitates
communication within the brain, allowing one to experience happy
feelings upon its release. Essentially, the antidepressant drugs
prevent reabsorption of serotonin in an attempt to make the happiness
experience last longer.

Mother of a monster

One of the former lead chemists at the National Institute of Health,
whose work eventually led to the development of many antidepressant
drugs, first spoke out against the drugs nearly 10 years ago.

“I am alarmed at the monster that Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon
Snyder and I created when we discovered the simple binding assay for
drug receptors 25 years ago,” said Dr. Candace Pert in the Oct. 20,
1997, issue of Time magazine.

She said Prozac and other SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor)
antidepressants may cause heart problems and affect the entire body,
where the vast majority of serotonin is produced.

The medical profession “ignores the body as if it exists merely to
carry the head around,” said Pert, who’s now scientific director of
RAPID Pharmaceuticals in Potomac, Md. “These molecules of emotion
regulate every aspect of our physiology.”

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found
that half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug, and
that antidepressant use has nearly tripled in the past decade.
According to some estimates, 30 million Americans take antidepressants.
FDA statistics show U.S. physicians issue more than 10 million
antidepressant prescriptions each year to patients younger than 18.
FDA-approved prescription drugs injure 2.2 million and kill at least
100,000 Americans each year, according to numerous published studies.

Some survive and forgive

Problem is, when antidepressants don’t work as intended, the harmful
fallout isn’t limited to the user. The victims often are those within
striking distance. They are people like Mark Taylor, who was sitting
outside and reading a Bible when he was shot numerous times by Eric
Harris at Columbine High School.

“The first one hit me in the back of the leg. That was the shotgun
blast,” Taylor said in a recent phone interview. “That was the most
painful. And then I got hit several more times in the chest; the
bullets went right through me. They tried to make sure I was dead. I
laid down and pretended I was dead.

“I think Eric Harris, from the medication, didn’t really know what he
was doing. I don’t really hold him responsible for it. Eric and Dylan
were both taking medicines. They just didn’t seem to have any reaction
to what they were doing. They were having fun with it, laughing and
enjoying it and having a good time. I feel that antidepressants were
the cause of the Columbine shooting.”

Taylor, now 24, travels the country and speaks about the importance of
forgiveness. Since the Virginia Tech shootings, he has been besieged
with interview requests. His interviews included an appearance on “The
Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,” a national Fox News Network
program. The hosts invited Taylor because they wanted to hear from
someone who had survived a school shooting, someone who presumably
could offer insight to help other children survive such an incident.

“Forgiveness,” Taylor told them, “that’s how I survived it.”

But Taylor said the show’s commentators weren’t much interested in his
message of forgiveness. Instead, the show focused on interviews with
FBI agents and police tacticians, who offered survival tips that we are
supposed to use to arm our children as we send them off to school.

Is this what it’s come to? Do we now simply accept that frequent school
shootings are a part of today’s society and prepare ourselves for when
tragedy strikes? Too often, instead of working to find the cause of
problems, we react to symptoms. That same kind of thinking is what has
so many Americans taking antidepressants in the first place.