Drug Up Your Teen Today! Mark Morford

[dweller]

<snip>
Haven't you been reading the papers? Watching the commercials? Drugs are in. Drugs are the new black. Drugs rain down from the sky like pretty
purple Skittles. Drugs are mandatory and the most important advancement in child-rearing since the invention of the cane and the padlock and the
Catholic priest.

No, not the bad drugs. Not the drugs that cool people take and which make your kids party hard and dance all night and which make their eyes all red
and mushy and makes colors swirl and skin feel like honey and makes them horny or hungry or feel really really good for awhile, until they don't. Not
the ones which are cheaply produced and impossible to regulate and as easy to get as degrading sexual misinformation in public schools. Not those.

No, your kids needs the other kind of drugs. The good kind. The kind that are prescribed by overpaid shrinks after the kid's umpteenth $300 visit. The
kind which run about seven bucks a pop and are made by Pfizer or GlaxoSmithCline or maybe Eli Lilly, and which are roughly three times more toxic
and a ten times more synthetic and a thousand times more spiritually debilitating than the "evil" street stuff, given how they're totally legal and corporate
sponsored and therefore radiate this sinister venomous aura of happy culturally approved doom.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/06/04/notes060404.DTL&type=printable

dp

[cap]

1. morford did not go far enough in this article...

let's talk about parents not being at home because they are working overtime/2-3 jobs as a cause for child depression. Let's talk about the kids of stay at home moms who are overscheduled...let's talk about test pressure cause by "Let's Kick a Child in the Behind"...let's talk about over-marketing to kids so that they have to have all this stuff (kids are now working at age 16 so they can afford stuff) and upping the peer pressure on kids who don't have stuff. Let's talk about the pressure on doing homework these days such that Moms drop out of the workforce so that they can help focus on doing homework (my sister's school ranks 93 as a B -- so one question wrong out of 10 drops your grade). Never mind the sex and violence marketed to kids -- the stories kids are seeing do not present a happy, optimistic view of the world.

At this rate, any sane kid and parent needs the drugs marketed by Big Pharma.

[CrispyQ]

2. We've sacrificed our citzenship to become consumers. eom

[Tamiati]

3. Drugged Kids

Here, Here! Excellent outlook, wish more would become aware. My son who is ADHD, was prescribed Ritalin for 5 years at 12 he refused to take it anymore. I allowed him the choice! The side effects of stunting his growth concerned him & me, he made the informed choice not to continue his meds. Yeah, the behaviors are there but manageable. For Pete's sake, he's a teenager now and we should expect challenging behaviors from any healthy child regardless of their chronological age. I certainly did not enjoy the "stupor" the med's put him in, and glad to have my "rowdy", forthright, vocal & opinionated child back.

So my husband (who is has been smoking pot since he was 14) & I suspect that both of us were the classic ADHD kid as we certainly were a challenge to our parents. Anyway, without his weed his (hubby) behaviors still present a challenge but I would rather have him smoke the ganja than use the LEGAL drug alcohol which makes him violent as it does me too. Pot, the renewable resource that just about anybody can grow, (it is just a "weed" you know). Albeit, a natural botanical remedy for many of the mental disorders that we see today.

So who is lobbying against the medical use of marijuana for all persons....the big Pharaceutical companies that's who. Not to mention the Hearst's who started the "reefer madness" campaign in the early 1900's, as a paper/logging magnate with plenty to lose that's who.

Absurd! ain't it???

[Mountainman]

4. This debate always intrigues me.

On the one side there are those who say we are substituting drugs for parenting and on the other side there are those who say that the drugs do treat a real malady.

I don't see anything here at DU that represents any scientific evidence. Most arguments rely on anecdotal evidence.

We probably all fall on one side of this debate or the other and I doubt that any of us will change our opinions just by reading someone's post here.

For me, the drugs have given me my life back. So I fall on the side that says the drugs can be an effective way to treat a real medical problem. But like all medications, you just don't watch a commercial and go out and get them. You go to a doctor and using your intellect you chose to follow the doctor's advice or you don't.

I think that parents must be the ones to decide what is best for their kids. No doctor or teacher should force the parents into giving their kids drugs against the parents will.

But, to many of us who have been treated successfully and many more who could be treated successfully, you do a great disservice by preaching the idea that this area of medicine is quackery or just a way for doctor's and drug companies to make money.
It was years between the time when I was first diagnosed and the time I decided to try the drugs the doctor prescribed. Those were years that could have been much more rewarding and less suffering for me and my wife had I started the meads earlier. And yes what I have is anecdotal evidence but I would never try to talk anyone into taking drugs. I just suggest that people in trouble should seek professional help and not listen to the wife's tales and not be afraid of what others will say about them. For me I was constantly told to "snap our of it." I learned that was similar to telling a paralyzed person to get up and walk.

What we need is more open debate on this topic but I don't see the side I am on discussed in the press much. I only see the ads on TV and I admit they can make people skeptical. I don't like the ads either. I think there should be PSA's about mental health that suggest that those who feel they have a problem seek professional help. I don't like pill pushers at all.

[kskiska]

5. I'm surprised they're not medicating kids

to suppress their sex drives, eliminating the need for abstinence vows.