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Drug Guns
March 16th, 2008Illegal drug dealing is responsible for most street homicides in the U.S.A.
Prescription drugs may be responsible for most mass homicides.
The latest piece of evidence on this theory comes from the recent post-mortem of the Northern Illinois University shooter, the former Mr. Steven Kazmierczak. Already well known is that Kaz had a number of psychiatric problems, though none of the overtly violent variety and thus he was never loony enough to be involuntarily committed to the Rubber Room Academy.
The Delinquent Kaz (not to be confused with the equally insane Daily Koz) appears to have been in a rapid withdraw cycle from Xanax, as evidenced by the residual quantities in his bloodstream.
Xanax is one of many psychotropics that clinical trails have shown to produce violent withdrawal symptoms. These side effects include:
Anxiety … decreased mental clarity, depression … insomnia … loss of reality … rapid breathing, seizures … tremor, twitching … suicidal thoughts
We are seeing this repeat … often.
Eric Harris - one of the Columbine killers — was a Zoloft (withdrawal systems include irritability, agitation, nervousness, emotional liability, bad dreaming and anger) and Luvox (agitation, anxiety, insomnia) user. His cohort in killing, Dylan Klebold was allegedly a psychotropic junkie as well, but his medical record were sealed and we may never know.
T.J. Solomon (six wounded) was on/off of Ritalin.
Kip Kinkel (four dead, 23 wounded) was on/off of Prozac.
Jeffrey Weise (10 dead, 15 wounded) was on/off Prozac.
Though I lost the link long ago, one clinical psychiatrist who had gathered all the publicly accessible medical records of mass public shooters over the previous decade had concluded that 100% of them were either on or withdrawing from psychotropics.
It could be argued that crazy people might well perform mass shooting without the aid of psychotropics. The problem is that violent and suicidal rages are a reported, clinically observed side effect of withdrawal and occasionally the medications themselves. Eric Harris in his video taped suicide note said he was purposefully dropping his medication to build his rage (a known side effect) and prepare him for massacre.
These pills may make life for livable for the seriously depressed, but indiscriminate prescribing of these meds to marginally messed-up children is causing more problems than they solve.
I think attempting to quickly fix a child’s mental problems by prescribing them drugs is all wrong.
Similarly, infants are often given the quick fix of antibiotics for minor infections simply because the mother can’t take time off work to look after them.