Probably not worth a new thread... but this is the sickest headline I've see in a long time.

More than one in 10 Americans use antidepressants
Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:55pm EDT
(Reuters) - I'm appalled that the US could be this far into the pill culture.
It is indeed time for Group Therapy, and time for medical schools
and the AMA and the government to get on top of this.

TV ads and physicians wanting to please their patients have made it too easy.
It is the physicians responsibility to diagnose and proscribe accurately,
There is no way that 10% of the population actually suffers from depression.
As a first step, free speech be damned... get the Rx ads off TV
.

I just finished listening to an interview on the radio... a similar statement struck me. The subject said "Americans represent 5% of the world's population, but we consume 65% of the world's psychoactive drugs."

I can't find a cite, but I'll keep looking. The program I listened to was on KUOW from 8-9pm 19 Oct 2011.

Legal or illegal?

I think it has something to do with our attitude of happiness as a "right" --- we are going to be happy, goddamnit!, no matter WHAT we have to do to achieve it! that sort of thing.

The CDC and NIH did the survey, and the way the remainder of the article reads,
I would believe these are legal Rx's from private physicians for their patients.

This is via Reuters, and tho not really suspect in itself, I could be a tiny bit leary. It is being picked up by other news services.

The positive flipside to this story might be that there is less stigma attached to depression in the US, making it more likely that those who do need help will actually seek it.


The entitlement to happiness thing is also a likely factor. Or, rather, an assumption that if you aren't happy then there's something wrong with you.

Another factor might be work culture. Mild depression may not really need medication, but if someone is struggling to keep their head above water, they may feel they need it in order not to end up taking time off work, or otherwise fucking up their job.

I heard in a piece that 1 in 25 American kids from 12 to 17 are on antidepressants.

Absolutely.

Our jobs (or lack thereof) depress us so we need the Rx to:

1) Keep going at our soul-crushing, inhumane work place

2) Keep going at our quest for a soul-crushing, inhumane work place.

We need $$$$ so we can buy their drugs.

welcome to Utopia! it's a brave new world!!

Give that chick a scooby snack.

I do believe this is true, actually. They've done studies showing the more affluent you are (not in pure net worth terms but in lifestyle,) the less likely you are to be happy. I saw another study showing that most people are actually happier and more optimistic after a natural disaster takes everything they own than they were before it.

I also believe, and I know this is a surprise to no one, that a large portion--if not the majority--of mental diseases are due to chemical imbalance in the brain, not experiential trauma (either a single large event like a death, or built up chronically over years like 'my mother never really loved me.') And I think we have brought these chemical imbalances on ourselves with the things we eat, breathe, and have otherwise consumed as a population over the last 100 years. Every single person I have met who is actually on antidepressants very much needs them (not that the pills are the only solution, but they very much need something to help their brain chemistry.) I've never met anyone who takes them on a whim.

You said what I would have said had I been able to say it.

Also, I'm not surprised that 10% of Americans are on an anti-depressant. It's a chemical imbalance, folks. Do I believe that for a few SSRIs are a "happy pill?" Sure. As with anything, some are looking for a quick fix.

But for some, they make the difference between living and driving your car off a cliff.


I am the 10%. ;)

I am Sparticus... I mean the 10%. ;)

I liked your post clod.

Spexx, you ARE Spartacus (I say that having no idea what it really means.) I luvs me some Spartacus Spexx.

When I opened this thread earlier, I thought someone had started one so we could all get our problems out in the open and talk about them as a group.

Then I realized the link for that one was www.cellar.org