Cannabis or beer are no longer the primary gateway drugs for teenagers. Prescription medication is.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this week that almost one-fifth of high school-age boys have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and physicians eventually medicate two-thirds of them. The New York Times piece breaking this story pointed out that Ritalin increases a child's chances of dependency, anxiety, and psychosis.
Daniel J. Flynn of The American Spectator writes, "It’s easy to wage a war on drugs when the enemy combatants wear tie-dye and long hair, or gold chains, track suits, and beepers, or, in their current incarnation, saggy drawers and designer t-shirts. When the drug pusher dons a white coat, the lab garb provides a cloak of invisibility. Despite ubiquitous evidence of their malfeasance in overmedicated America, dope dispensing doctors remain largely immune from criticism. Indeed, the indecency resides in the suggestion that writing prescriptions can be habit forming, not in the writing of prescriptions that form habits," and added, "The collective cognitive dissonance on drugs doesn’t withstand an honest look at the history of the science. In most instances, today’s dirty “street” drugs were introduced as yesterday’s clean cure-alls by pharmaceutical companies."
The German pharmaceutical giant Bayer gave the world both aspirin and heroin. Heroin was marketed more than a century ago as “the sedative for coughs.” One of Bayer's old advertisements shows a caring mom spoon feeding heroin to her daughter above the caption “the cough disappears.” The ad did not say what took its place, however.
Ecstasy, also known as “X,” “E,” or “MDMA,” first came into existence in a Merck laboratory.
LSD was created by Sandoz Laboratories and was marketed by the pharmaceutical company under the name Delysid. Sigmund Freud maintained that moderate cocaine use did not induce a “compulsive desire to use the stimulant further.” But his life contradicted his claims. He was a coke addict, with disastrous and debilitating consequences, for more than a decade.
Ritalin, Desoxyn, and Adderall, members of the methamphetamine family whose names have been changed for respectability purposes, are dispensed like OxyContin, under medical auspices. If someone like Sigmund Freud could so underestimate the destructive power of narcotics, it is likely that physicians with lesser intellects are erring in judgment today.
Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry influences every stage of the health system. See: http://www.examiner.com/article/the-pharmaceutical-industry-influences-every-stage-of-the-health-system
Source: http://spectator.org/archives/2013/04/05/the-drug-war-on-boys
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