Prozac Causes More Deaths than Any Other Drug Essay

With access to prescription drugs, people are able to treat a multitude of diseases and illnesses. These drugs help deal with pain, inability to sleep, depression, and much more. Every day we are increasingly living in a world where there is better living through chemicals. However, what most do not seem to see is the rising tide of pain, illness, and ultimately death being caused by the pills people take every day. Most keep drugs in a special place in their minds, where they see them as harmless. Sadly, this is not the case, and in some cases our prescription drugs can be just as harmful as illegal drugs (King 68).

Susannah Cahalan, a 24 year old, healthy and successful journalist for the New York post, experienced an acute onset of psychosis. Symptoms ranged from paranoia to seizures, which eventually led to a catatonic state. The onset of the female’s symptoms occurred when she became paranoid of a bed bug infestation in her home, yet after having her home exterminated there was no indication of bedbugs. Concern arose from her nonexistent appetite and severe insomniac behaviors. She began noticing her own erratic behaviors and shortly after experienced her first seizure episode. In search of an answer to reoccurring seizures she went to a physician who put her on Keppra (an antiseizure medication) and warned her the symptoms were due to stress and heavy drinking. The increasing paranoia developed into hallucinations, people plotting against her or speaking poorly of her. EEG and MRI results exhibited normal results; further indicating stress and alcohol withdraw. After being admitted to the NYU medical school EEG monitoring floor, examination showed tangential, disorganized, and temperamental behaviors. Several escape attempts later, placed Susannah in the more difficult patients category. Doctors suggested conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and cancer. She exhibited abnormally high blood pressure pointing to extreme concern.

We in America tend to take medications for almost any problem we have, from headaches to gastrointestinal pain, to more serious chronic disorders such as depression and attention deficit disorder. While many of the uses of such medications may be necessary and legitimate, many are not, and due to this fact, many people become dependent on medications, mentally, and or physically. This problem is not simply the fault of the individual; in fact, the blame can also be placed upon the medical community, and the pharmaceutical companies who produce the drugs. How often can one turn on the television to see advertisements for Claritin, Aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, or even Zoloft or Ritalin? The pharmaceutical industry is motivated by monetary

America is at war. We have been battling drug mishandle for very nearly a century. Four Presidents have by and by battled against medications. Sadly, it is a war that we are losing. Tranquilize abusers keep on filling our courts, healing centers, and detainment facilities. The medication exchange causes rough wrongdoing that assaults our neighborhoods. Offspring of medication abusers are ignored, manhandled, and even surrendered. The main recipients of this war are sorted out wrongdoing individuals and street pharmacists.

The very same items a doctor prescribes to help people get well might be making them sick. Prescription drugs are being taken for reasons other than the ones they are being prescribed for, fueling an addiction that impacts as many as 48 million Americans ("Prescription Drug Abuse" WebMD). According to MedLinePlus, "an estimated 20 percent of people in the United States have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons. This is prescription drug abuse." While a considerable amount of time, resources, and attention are focused on the problems associated with illicit drugs, prescription drug abuse is "an increasing problem," with very serious consequences for individuals, families, and communities (MayoClinic Staff). The United States Office of National Drug Control Policy claims, "Prescription drug abuse is the Nation's fastest-growing drug problem, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified prescription drug abuse as an epidemic." Because prescription drugs are viewed as safe due to their being part of the doctor's pharmacopeia, the same psychological, legal, ethical, and social barriers to abuse might not be present. However, prescription drug abuse creates a wide range of problems, including dangerous or lethal side effects, long-term addiction, and the dismantling of family and community

The drug industry has severely attacked government, feeling that they are too restricted and that government has no right to

This can make it difficult to tell precisely which drug is affecting an individual’s emotions. Doctors do, however, have a pretty good idea of what each narcotic can do due to research in individuals that have taken one drug at a time.

In the United States of America, there is prescription drug abuse epidemic that continues to be a growing concern. Prescription drugs cause a large amount of overdoses and result in an abundant amount of deaths each year. A government study conducted shows this epidemic is scarily on the rise, “A recent government study found a 400% increase in prescription drug abuse between 1998 and 2008” (Schreiner 531). The excessive use of prescription drug abuse is leading to nonmedical use of the drugs, and creating addiction. Furthermore society is paying an extreme amount of money in this battle. With this drug abuse on the rise, legislators must create a law preventing doctors and pharmacists from over prescribing prescription medications as well a law to require they both participate in drug monitoring programs to prevent drug abuse. Now is the time that doctors and the pharmaceutical industry must be held accountable for their role in causing one of America’s worst addictions. The over medication of prescription drugs in the United States must be brought to an end by legislators creating laws to stop

The War on Drugs, like the war on Terrorism, is a war that America may not be able to afford to win. For over forty years the United States has been fighting the War on Drugs and there is no end in sight. It has turned into a war that is about politics and economics rather than about drugs and criminals. The victims of this war are numerous; but perhaps they are not as numerous as those who benefit from the war itself.

antidepressants don’t work as well as they thought. He also said they may cause more

Even though people need their prescriptions, the abuse of them is getting out of control and we need to find a way to regulate it better,because it can destroy a family, cause some to become addicted, or even kill them. Prescription drugs are no joke, they can be worse than illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and even heroin. The only difference is a doctor can prescribe these types of drugs. The problem we run into with prescription drugs is there is not enough being done to keep the person from becoming addicted or them selling to others. In 2007 2.5 million Americans abused just painkillers (Drug free world). That is not even including the other two types. Now it is starting to affect teens, one out of every ten teenagers admit to abusing a prescribed drug(Drug-free world).

In the 20th century, the United States government led a major renewed surge in drug prohibition called the "War on Drugs", this started the US on a spiral that would harm us all. Since the war on drugs began under the administration of President Richard Nixon, the federal drug-fighting budget has increased from $100 million in 1970 to $15.1 billion in 2010, with a total cost estimated near 1 trillion dollars over 40 years (drug policy, 2015). The amount of money that the United States spends on drugs could be used in many better fields of government. A large argument against this is that this money has been used to help end drug use. If that statement is true, then the DEA is doing a poor job at ending drug use since drug use has gone up since the war has started. The financial cost of the drug war is not worth it due to progress not being made here in the United States.

When we break our arm everyone runs forward to sign the cast but when we say we have depression everyone turns and runs the other way. This author shows how severe depression can form and issues that can be associated with severe depression. The way Elizabeth Wurtzel depicts depression and the substance abuse that can be related to severe depression is  impeccable in her non-fiction novel Prozac Nation. Depression affects more than 350 million people worldwide and is the most common of all the mental illnesses, it doesn’t have a cure but it is manageable with proper medication. Elizabeth Wurtzel has said “ I made ‘Prozac Nation’  a necessary reading because I write necessarily.  I tell my story because it is about everyone else: in 1993, people took pills to relieve the pain just like they do now, but it scared them; it doesn’t anymore, because talk is not cheap at all -- it is tender”i think this is very important  because it shows how hushed the talk about the facts on mental illness are. Although depression is shown to be an individual illness, the author effectively demonstrates the massive toll depression takes on family and friends. For example, depression takes a toll on your family and friends by having to watch you suffer and be in pain and not be able to do anything about it. Secondly, your family and friends are stuck watching as depression takes you

Americans have become so dependent on the thought of some drug helping them get by day to day life. They have been conditioned to think taking so many pills is a normal thing to be doing, when in fact it’s not. In other countries such as the UK doctors are much more cautious about prescribing any benzo because they are aware of the long term effects. They use them more for procedures to calm the patient, as they should be used

Today, mental issues like ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and depression are better understood thanks to past experience and seen as a minor neurosis. Unfortunately some treatments depersonalize these individuals leaving them empty and plain. There are clear examples of negative connotations attributed to medications. In his autobiography, the