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RE: Anti-Anxiety Pills
these drugs make a couple of drinks look like a peach tea in terms of removing inhibitions. Studies show that everyone or almost everyone has thought about committing homicide but no one or almost no one actually does it.
yup, suddenly stopping it probably also dangerous.
I don't know, for some people alcohol has a pretty damn strong inhibition removal.
But for the vast majority of people, it is not just anxiety that prevents them from killing someone anyway. And the vast majority of people who take these drugs do not become suicidal or homicidal which I think makes my point.
There are a handful of mass shootings a year at most. By comparison, how many people take this medication? I don't know the numbers but I'm guessing mass shooters account for a very minuscule fractional percent of all people who take this medicine. Not very strong evidence that the medicine is the actual cause.
sure a lot of people take them and don't commit mass murder but it seems like all or most of the people who commit mass murder take them.
But most of the people who are taking them have mental issues anyway which was my original point. It's kind of like saying that most people who are dying with an infection are dying because they are taking antibiotics.
I'm not saying these medicines are not a contributing factor in some cases but there isn't any proof of that yet. Correlation is not causation and 99.9% (or more) of the people who take this medication do not become mass killers. Even it does contribute in some cases, it's something that needs to be understood better and addressed not by just simply banning the medication which I believe does help a lot of people.
one of the problems with actually studying mass shooters is to draw any conclusions or strong statistics because the sample size is so small. if we had good numbers we could see if there are more of these mass shooters now or before the introduction of antidepressants and antianxiety medications.
Right, but that was the whole implication of the OP...that the drugs are the cause. However, the last statistic that I saw says that 13% of Americans are taking antidepressants with the majority being SSRIs. Given that the number of mass shooters is statistically insignificant it doesn't seem like you could accurately say that the drugs are the cause. The fact that most mass shooters are on these drugs just says that they had mental issues which is pretty clear given their actions. Why blame the drug instead of the mental condition that led to the drug being prescribed in the first place? Most sick people take medicine. Doesn't mean the medicine is the cause of their sickness. To argue otherwise is fallacious unless you have other evidence.
it does say on the label things like "may cause aggression, may cause suicidal thoughts or actions"
They wouldn't have to put "cause" on there unless it caused those things.
I don't believe aggression is typically listed as a side effect on most (or any?) SSRIs. Suicidal thoughts or actions is listed as a side effect on some or all of them but there is only a statistically measurable increase over placebo for those under 24 years of age. There are very many drugs that have extreme side effects listed as a possibility (with death often being one of them) but these types of side effects are exceedingly rare.
Drunk driving kills 10,000 people a year. Far more than mass shooters. Poor decision making and reduced reaction time are among the many side effects of alcohol. And it's recreational. Even assuming every single mass shooting is caused by an SSRI (which I do not believe), how could you justify banning them over banning alcohol?
The statistics do not show SSRIs to be the cause of mass shootings (based on how many people take them and don't kill people). You can believe it is the cause but it doesn't make it so. Why believe the drug is the cause over the underlying mental condition that led to the drug being prescribed in the first place? What's your suggestion for their use? Do you believe the government should be able to ban people from taking them? Do you believe that they don't help people?
Aggression is on the label for Chantix along with suicidal actions. Which is killing yourself.
I am 100% sure I have not suggested banning anything. I don't believe in banning things.
Psyche drugs are overprescribed and the people who are on them are poorly monitored, what we really need is to return to impatient treatment for crazy dangerous people. The problem is that we can't really even have the conversation because the drug companies control the media and our government. Is anyone from the government even keeping statistics on how many mass shooters are on prescription drugs when they commit their crimes?