Since Richard Nixon was President, we have been fighting a drug war we can't possibly win. Meanwhile, we have barely begun to fight a different drug war we couldn't possibly lose.
The losing battle is against illegal drugs. Interdiction has been as big a bust as Prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s. Occasionally arresting a drug kingpin or confiscating a few million of dollars worth of contraband heroin or cocaine makes for a nice headline, but doesn't stop the flow.
The beneficiaries of our war on drugs have been the cartels and the narco-terrorists; the casualties are the failing states they can buy or bully. The Mexican government is fighting what amounts to an undeclared civil war against cartels armed to the teeth and flowing with money -- both from north of the border. We have unwittingly created a terrific business model for the drug dealers and a disaster for the states where they deal.
That other drug war, which we couldn't possibly lose, is against the excessive use of legal drugs that is promoted by our own pharmaceutical companies. Astounding fact: prescription drugs are now responsible for more accidental overdoses and deaths than street drugs. Polypharmacy is rampant and uncontrolled with military personnel , the elderly, and children particularly vulnerable to its risks. Michael Jackson is just the most high profile poster victim of this growing epidemic of legal drug abuse. The drug cocktails are sometimes prescribed by dangerous high-flying doctors, sometimes by multiple doctors who just aren't aware of each other's existence, and prescription drugs are also widely available for purchase on the street.
There is not one cause of this mess, and there won't be one cure. Doctors, drug companies, patients, politicians and our fragmented health care system are all to blame. But the elephant in the room is Big Pharma. It has hijacked the practice of medicine, using its enormous profits to unduly influence physicians, physician groups, academics, consumer advocacy groups, the Internet, the press and the government. Misleading 'disease mongering' promotional programs saturate the media with direct-to-consumer drug advertising that is illegal everywhere else in the world except New Zealand and the developing nations.
The result: a ridiculously high proportion of our people have come to rely on antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety agents, sleeping pills, and pain meds. Psychiatric meds are among the very top best sellers for the drug companies -- over $16 billion for antipsychotics; almost $12 billion on antidepressants, and more than $7 billion for ADHD drugs. One in five Americans takes a psychiatric drug, one in five women is on an antidepressant.
Seventy percent of these pills are prescribed by primary care doctors with little training in their proper use, under intense pressure from drug salespeople and misled patients, after rushed seven minute appointments and subject to no systematic auditing.
The free market in drug salesmanship has led to promiscuous drug use, needless side effects and wasted resources -- a kind of societal overdose.
The Government has unwittingly aided and abetted Pharma. The cash-strapped FDA is beholden to industry for funding.
And it gets worse. Big Pharma all too often also goes illegal to push even more product. The multi-billion dollar criminal and civil penalties recently levied on several different drug companies provide clear evidence of the pervasive extent of drug company wrongdoing -- but have not been big enough to deter it. A billion dollars must seem like chump change -- just the cost of doing business.
Pretty bleak. But if we ever had the political will to begin it, we couldn't possibly lose a war to tame the dangerous use of legal drugs. The solutions are crystal clear and a cinch to implement -- if we were really determined to solve the problem:
1) Sharply restrict drug company marketing and lobbying. Pharma now spends almost twice as much money pushing drug sales as on research -- we would have better medicines and less legal drug abuse if this were reversed.
2) Make the punishments for marketing malfeasance much more of a deterrent to underhanded drug pushing. This could be done by levying much bigger mega-fines on the companies; by also holding the executives personally responsible and perhaps by reducing the period of product patent protection.
3) Develop a computerized real-time national system to identify and prevent polypharmacy. Credit card companies can abort a suspicious $100 transaction before the fact. Why can't we apply the same technology preemptively to prevent a patient from collecting potentially lethal pills?
4) Doctor's prescribing habits need to be closely monitored to correct or eject the Dr. Feelgoods.
5) It would greatly improve the quality of our health care system and greatly reduce its costs if all doctors, professional associations, consumer groups, and politicians were prevented from accepting drug company funding. Do drug companies really need this much 'free speech'? It makes no sense to have The Food and Drug Administration funded by drug companies.
What are the political prospects of my twin proposals -- to begin the winnable war against the over-use of legal drugs and to drop the losing war against illegal drugs? You guessed it -- zero and zero. The first will be doomed by Pharma's political punch; the latter by the irrational victory of hope and ideology over experience.
This post is part of the HuffPost Shadow Conventions 2012, a series spotlighting three issues that are not being discussed at the national GOP and Democratic conventions: The Drug War, Poverty in America, and Money in Politics.
HuffPost Live will be taking a comprehensive look at America's failed war on drugs August 28th and September 4th from 12-4 pm ET and 6-10 pm ET. Click here to check it out -- and join the conversation.
Allen Frances is a professor emeritus at Duke University and was the chairman of the DSM-IV task force.
Dr. Peter Breggin: Today's Greatest Mental Health Need: Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal Programs
That is the United States of America's plutocratic system in a nutshell. One good act coming out at the end of a life of sordidness, sadism and sickening actions. But, once an evil fraud always to some degree an evil fraud. At least I am European and never had to experience parents drugging me "out of love". But, my fortune will never be that of their victims and their students' victims.
The truth of the matter is that he, Joseph Biederman, BF Skinner (remember Skinnerian conditioning and "Beyond Freedom and Dignity") and many, many others have led the path for retardation in untold numbers of children through their advocacy of psychiatric behaviorism which as protocol has children at young ages sent off to institutional schools where their nervous systems suffer from non-organic failure to thrive related forms of mental retardation and learning disabilities as they sit in "class rooms" staring at blank walls while drugged out on several hundred milligrams of anti-psychotics. They have made it so that institutional settings continue to take in people even after De-institutionalization occurred and to continue working on their record of beating and raping vulnerables.
So, I put it out there. Frances and his cronies in the name of capitalism in Psychiatry have directly and indirectly abused millions and millions of American children. Not to mention the adults that they hurt, as well.
Sadly, there is no money in 'curing' things.
Pot prohibition is crime against humanity
Prohibition criminals thrive, Our CIA floods our streets with drugs bad drugs like heroin, to finance wars that are illegal.
Meanwhile, Pharma drugs go on the market with company testing and no followup.
Legalize pot, save millions of lives.
The issue of withdrawal from SSRI and benzos are completely denied by regulators and manufacturers, leaving patients to seek out anecdotal and community information. This lack of official information leads patients to either accept a new diagnosis and a new prescription, or defy their doctor's orders and attempt withdrawal on their own. Both courses of action result in lower outcomes for the patient. They either find themselves on the downward spiral of diagnoses/poly drugging, or become non compliant.
The pharmaceutical companies have two mandates, earn profits and produce good medicines. The balance has shifted too far towards earning profits, and too far away from producing effective medicines. We shouldn't seek to punish companies, but rather move the balance more towards the care of patients. Since the companies seem to be intransigent in their stance that their procedures do not need to be changed, punitive fines may be the only way to change their behavior.
The reported adverse events they mention in the commercials are not necessarily side effects. Sometimes even a true placebo will have a statistically significant number of incidents of a particular adverse event. The clinical trials are thorough and well developed, and they want to be sure consumers know the possible adverse experiences they could have with the drug.
Of course, my favorite by far is still Roche's Xenical- "Gas with oily, rectal discharge; frequent and urgent bowel movements and the inability to control them." That was pure comedic fodder. Even now, years later I can't help but giggle every time I think about it.
"Unwittingly" is kind to the point of absurdity. In the Republican Paradise we call 21st Century America, the system designed by the founders and outlined in the Constitution no longer exists. Government by lobbyist was not envisioned in the 18th Century, but in post-Republican- Revolutionary America, that is the system. Bribery is not just not against the law, it is the law. The entire system runs on illicit money, vying both to divvy up the licit, taxpayers money, and to shape laws abetting the sale of dangerous but "legal" drugs, start wars nobody wins for no reason, allow Wall Street to run the biggest casino on the planet, and in general enable anything any hustler thinkshe can make a buck at, regardless of who gets screwed in the process The 21st Century US is a Gangster Republic.
For an understand of this, read the novels and notebooks of the philosophical guru of 21st Century right-wing America, Ayn Rand.
This is no accident. If there is a book that says it's ok, it's a Philosophy. That the Philosopher is stone crazy is a subjective view, one not shared by her right-wing acolytes, who either share her craziness, or use it as cover.
The one thing I would add to your thoughts is the media and their portrayal of how we all should live. Need to lose a few pounds so you look like ______ ? Take a few pills to suppress your appetite. Want to have sex like you were 25 again? Take a little blue pill everyday, so you can be spontaneous. Not out in the park frolicking with your kids? Don't bother eating better, or doing yoga, or exercising, Just take a pill so you can be a good parent again, like you see on all those shows. You too can be a beautiful person... trust us.
Proud to be #1
Did you ever watch daytime television. Every other ad is for drugs, they describe symptoms we all have (like gypsies with a crystal ball.) Watch it long enough and you will become a hypocondriac. They won't be happy til we become a bunch of zombies. In a field where there is so much money involved your kept under constant pressure and the price is really human life.