The Connection Between Psychotropic Drugs And Criminal Justice

Although we tend to think that drugs are here to comfort and heal people, we must also take into account that behind every drug, we have a drug company that is making millions of dollars off of consumers who by their products. Behind every consumer, we have a doctor that is recommending and prescribing the medication. In “The Medicated Child,” we learn that the researchers who advocate the use of psychiatric medications, receive enormous support from drug companies. Firsthand doctors inform us that theses drug industry funded studies influence their decisions on what drugs to “push” or prescribe. This is a major conflict of interest because the decisions and results of the studies are

One out of every four Americans suffered from a mental illness, yet 60% of them never received treatment (Berkowicz, 2013). An increased awareness of the effect of psychiatric drugs led some to believe that use of them by teen led to violence. In the last several years 31 acts of school violence occurred by people taking, on withdrawal of, or abusing psychiatric drugs. These

This paper intends to examine the relationship between mental health (specifically individuals who exhibit mental illness) and the criminal justice system. The paper will be broken down into areas focusing on the issues that exists for and between the law enforcement officials and those who have mental illness and end up involved in the penial justice system. Individuals who have mental health issues are special cases that will be addressed within this paper with the focus being how they end upon the wrong side of the law and more importantly how they are treated by the criminal justice system when this occurs. By studying this subject from a historical context will enable the writer to establish how the criminal justice system in this country

By identifying the cause of the problem at its roots, we are lead to believe that we may be able to stop it before it sprouts. The murderer, in the case of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, was “socially awkward and reserved”, as Ben Stein puts it in his article in The American Spectator (Stein). Perhaps our killer had a similar background to many of our American youth. With increasing trends in teen depression and suicide, and the implementation of more and more prescription anti-depressants and anxiety medications, there are adverse side-effects. Peter Breggin, in an excerpt from his article on Naturalnews.com, states that “psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, stimulants, and tranquilizing sedatives, can cause violence” (Breggin). While this assumption does hold true in some cases, are we really to be blaming the drug for the acts of the human, already unstable and unreliable? And are we to take a true monster like the Sandy Hook shooter and compare him to any troubled young man, dealt a bad hand and struck with anxiety? Stein includes a quote from John R. Coyne, Jr., “There is evil in the world. It’s beyond mental illness, beyond gun control. It is evil” (Stein). Perhaps to blame the medication for an unspeakable crime is to blame a scapegoat for an act of pure and undisputed

This distinction, between the legitimate use of psychoactive medicines and the sub rosa use of drugs, is more vexed than ever. We have seen nearly 45 years of the War of Drugs… outcries about the safety of our children and accompanying uproars about nicotine in e-cigarettes, caffeine in energy drinks, “synthetic marijuana”, and heroin… club drugs, designer drugs, experimental drugs, homemade methamphetamine… We have pharmaceutical commercials on TV…to the point that any thinking person would be forgiven for questioning the

In this paragraph, I will be presenting a counter argument as if antidepressants are really helping our culture. I will be using Robert Whitaker's point of view of how our society is overmedicating mental illness. I am using Whitaker as source of information because source is well-written and organized. Robert Whitaker is a journalist and author of Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Whitaker states that antidepressants are overprescribed in America, harming those who do not need them. In fact, Researchers have proven that using medical substance don't improve behaviors. In the long run, using some sort of antidepressant can worsen the disease. Whitaker quotes "If 'wonder drugs'

The questions that are hoped to be answer by the end of this research are the following: what are the chances of overdosing while taking antidepressants? Is therapy more efficient than medication when treating patients that have been diagnosed with depression?What causes chemical imbalances? When can therapy or medication become the best option for treatment for depression? Where is the best place to get therapy or a prescription for depression? Who can help patients get better? How can therapy be more useful and more helpful than medication? Why are there not any more options for mental illnesses? Would doctors admit to their preferences of treatment when dealing with patients that have been diagnosed with depression? Could medication lead to suicide for depression diagnosed patients? Should medication be treated as the first option for treatment against

Whitaker expands on the fact that the mentally ill who use psychiatric drugs suffer serious physical tolls on their bodies, indicating that there are more than just mental consequences to using such drugs. From the 1950’s until now, and in the future, the currently prescribed psychiatric drugs continue to hold a broad range of physical health risks. For example, Whitaker

There is a common theme between all of the mass shooting. And all of it is guns and violence.

The criminal justice system has been evolving since the time the system was created. The criminal justice system has helped control the crime in the United States and also attempted to help those charged to lead better lives. The government has enforced and passed legislation that drastically alters the criminal justice system and how authorities should treat those convicted. In the YouTube video, John Oliver directly hits major points and concerns in the criminal justice system. He unleashed information that most people do not want to discuss about the system and John Oliver made it an awareness to the public to realize how the system is failing those incarcerated. Throughout the paper, the topics that will be discussed includes the drug problems

According to The United States of America – An Overmedicated Society, “…a drug company can simply ‘put on the shelf’ a drug study that does not show that the drug they studied was effective.” There isn’t any ban on not publishing a study, and research has found that published drug studies show more variation in condition improvement than most unpublished studies (Overmedicated Society). This is because almost all drug studies with positive results are published, but only one-tenth of negative or uncertain studies are published (Overmedicated Society). As The United States of America – An Overmedicated Society states, “Advertisement doesn’t even inform you about precisely what the pill supposedly does.” Pending drugs aren’t normally tested as long as they should be, so they sometimes don’t show the long-term symptoms (Overmedication). Studies are even sometimes conducted to make a medicine seem better than it really is, on account of the fact that most studies are being conducted by the drug company itself, who wants the study to come back positive. The United States of America – An Overmedicated Society also asserts the fact that “Medication side effects are the 4th leading cause of death in the US annually.” Furthermore, many experts are being bribed by pharmaceutical companies to recommend their products to other physicians (Overmedicated Society). In fact, as Pill Nation USA remarks, “…8% of doctors feeling strongly pressured to prescribe the advertised drug.” Indeed, the falsehood of pharmaceutical companies, especially by omission, has a huge role in American’s use of

Recruitment of subjects for clinical research trial participation has become increasingly challenging. It is becoming more difficult to recruit study patients for many reasons: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are increasingly demanding the generalization (a representative sampling of people in the real world) of study participants, institutional review board (IRB) restrictions, increased pressure on research sites to perform, various scandals, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). All of these factors are increasing the cost of medical research drastically which in turn raises the cost of the medications they are producing. Many of these issues, particularly the scandals, have been played out in the media in the most

Clinical trials in humans are the only way to prove the efficacy of a new treatment. This signifies the “bedside” component of research. There are various stages of the human trials. The first stage involves giving the drug to a group of around 20 to 80 healthy humans to help researchers understand how the drug is absorbed into the system (“From Lab,” 2014). This can also show any side effects that were not present or evident in the animal trials. The second and third stages involve people who have the disease or illness that the drug is intended to treat. The second stage comprises of a larger group of 30 to 300 people with the targeted disease and focuses on

(Grady, 2008) For example, after a new drug or medical device has been proven safe and effective and is available to the general population, it still has to be monitored by the FDA for any possible unknown safety concerns, negative side effects, and/or potential unsafe drug interactions. In figure 1, the timeline only represents clinical trial research and development. In some cases basic research “bench” studies could take decades and may never even result in a clinical trial or ending up “beside”.

The discussion of drug usage is a controversial topic in today’s society provided with both positive and negative aspects. Prescribed drugs are considered to be advantageous because it is used to assist an individual, regularly a patient, dealing with a specific concern within their body or mind. However, the misuse of nonmedical drugs has been spreading rapidly in the United States. When a drug is misused addictions can arise and cause several troubles in the lives of an individual (Rozenbroek, 2011).