IS THE GOVERNMENT TO BLAME
FOR WAVE OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE?

by Mark Valverde

In the wake of the recent wave of shootings in America's government
schools, there has been an orgy of hand-wringing and finger-pointing
in the mainstream media. Blame for these tragedies is variously
ascribed to the availability of firearms or the violent content of
movies, television and video games. Occasionally, blame is placed with
the parents of the perpetrators. Even the patently absurd notions that
black trench-coats or Marilyn Manson are somehow to blame were soberly
debated in the American broadcast and print media.

Amidst all the clamor there have been a few voices sounding a very
different alarm: that millions of American children are on
psychotropic drugs - many of which have violent side-effects.

Samuel L. Blumenfield, writing in WorldNetDaily (July 7) noted:

What is most disturbing, however, is the growing awareness that the
increased violence among school children may have more to do with the
drugs than with the guns they use to carry out their violence.

Kelly O'Meara, writing in the June 28, 1999 issue of Insight magazine,
(and cited by Blumenfield) reports that there are now over five
million school children on psychotropic drugs, most of which are
prescribed and administered in the government schools themselves. The
December 1996 Teacher Magazine (also cited by Blumenfield) reports
that there are four million on Ritalin alone, while Alexander
Cockburn, writing in the Los Angeles Times (July 6), reports that
Ritalin is being given to about two million American school children.

Eighteen-year-old Eric Harris, who with his friend Dylan Klebold, 17,
massacred their classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colorado on April 20, had been taking Luvox for
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. T. J. Solomon, 15, who shot and wounded
six fellow students at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia, on
May 20 was on Ritalin for depression. Also on Ritalin for Bi-polar
Disorder was fifteen-year-old Shawn Cooper, who fired two shotgun
rounds, narrowly missing classmates and teachers at his high school in
Notus, Idaho. Kip Kinkel, 15, who first killed his parents and later
killed two students and wounded 22 more in his Oregon school's
cafeteria, was on Ritalin and Prozac. Mitchell Johnson, 13, who, with
his friend,Andrew Golden, 11, shot several children and a teacher at
Westside Middle School in Jones-boro, Arkansas, was being treated by a
psychiatrist and is presumed to have been on some sort of medication.

Ritalin, is commonly used to treat a disorder known as Attention
Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder
(ADHD). According to Time magazine's July 1994 cover story, "ADHD has
three main hallmarks: extreme distractibility, and almost reckless
impulsiveness, and in some but not all cases, knee-jiggling,
toe-tap-ping hyperactivity that makes sitting still all but
impossible." A 1986 article by Richard Scarnati in the International
Journal of the Addictions lists more than a hundred adverse reactions
to Ritalin, including paranoid delusions, paranoid psychosis,
amphetamine-like psychosis and terror.

Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a psychiatrist (and a member of ISIL's advisory
board), says, "I have no doubt that Prozac can contribute to violence
and suicide. I've seen many cases. In a recent clinical trial, 6% of
the children became psychotic on Prozac. And manic psychosis can lead
to violence."

The reason for the widespread use of Ritalin and other psychotropic
drugs on children, according to Dr. Sharon Presley, a libertarian
psychologist with Resources for Independent Thinking, is "as a method
of social control. It's a lazy way of keeping kids under control.
Instead of dealing with their children's problems in an in-depth way,
parents and school administrators drug them to shut them up."

What is it about these drugs that leads to explosive behavior?

Jack Wheeler, writing recently in Strategic Investment, observed that
Prozac and Luvox are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs):

Serotonin is a brain chemical or neurotransmitter that conducts
messages in the brain's serotonergic nervous system. As an inhibitory
transmitter, it inhibits or slows down other nerves from firing. Thus
it is essential for impulse regulation, for inhibiting acting without
thinking first. Serotonin-deficient people are more prone to
depression, impulsive violence, and committing suicide by violent
means . . . .

When serotonin carries it's message from one nerve to another, it is
taken back to storage vesicles by a transport mechanism. What is left
over in the gap between the nerves is eaten up by an enzyme. A SSRI
like Luvox or Prozac blocks or slows down the transport mechanism,
leaving more serotonin in the gap. This causes an increase in
production of the enzyme to eat it up. People feel more optimistic,
and less depressed and prone to go out of control, with more serotonin
in the receptors. But note that an SSRI doesn't enable the brain to
produce more serotonin - rather, it causes what serotonin there is to
be used up faster. If a person's brain cannot manufacture enough
serotonin to keep up with the increased use and faster rate of
enzymatic destruction, over time a person's serotonin levels can get
critically low, and he explodes.

Breggin, author of Talking Back to Ritalin and Toxic Psychiatry,
described at least part of what Wheeler believes could have happened
to Eric Harris:

According to the manufacturer, Solvay, 4% of children and youth taking
Luvox developed mania during short-term controlled clinical trials.
Mania is a psychosis which can produce bizarre, grandiose, highly
elaborated destructive plans.

Wheeler, insists that the "FDA is far more to blame than the NRA" for
the recent incidences of school violence, not because the FDA approved
these drugs, but because

[T]he FDA legally prohibits a nutritional alternative. The way the
brain makes a neurotransmitter is with a main building block or
precursor and various vitamin co-factors. The precursor of serotonin
is the essential amino acid tryptophan (essentially meaning your body
can't make it, you have to get it through your diet). Ten years ago 15
million people were taking tryptophan supplements in the United
States. Then a number of people got sick and died, all of whom were
taking supplemental tryptophan. . . . It was traced to one contaminant
in one batch from one manufacturer. Yet after tryptophan was proven
not to be the culprit, the FDA refused to lift the ban. SSRIs like
Prozac had just come on the market, and a cheap, unpatentable
nutritional alternative that naturally increases serotonin production
(rather than using it up faster) would be disastrous to billions of
dollars of drugs sales.

. . . [W]ith the exception of the War on Drugs, the FDA's ban on
tryptophan is the single greatest cause of violence in the United
States today.

www.breggin.com

www.rit.org

www.strategicinvestment.com

www.WorldNetDaily.com

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Richard Rider
Economy Telcom
Voice: (858) 530-2634
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