Prozac world

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat

Many people are convinced that lives run smoother on Ritalin, Prozac and other modern day pharmo-psychological miracle pills than without. This helps define a new generation's reliance on fitting in, happily and untroubled, into a society that no longer sees different as unique, but unhealthy.

The Massachusetts school system has recently proposed a bill concerning children and drugs, which shows just how dependent our culture is on drugs to achieve psychological normalcy.

Drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac are handed out so frequently by school nurses in Boston that nurses are spending the majority of their time dealing drugs and less of it with what they are trained to do.

Rather than teach oral hygiene maintenance and schedule class fluoride rinses, nurses spend the majority of their day administering drug doses for presumed psychological behavior disasters. Yes, children.

The bill proposes that nurses farm out drug responsibility to untrained health administers (teachers without medical training). This will mean that handing out drugs will be quicker, smoother and more efficient. Elementary school is now more like a rave than an institution of learning.

Ritalin is the drug of choice. According to an article which appeared in the New York Times, Ritalin "for reasons not fully understood, often helps children who are chronically distractible, impulsive and hyperactive settle down and concentrate." In laymen's terms, Ritalin helps take the child out of childhood.

Parents and doctors expect children to act as though they are adults, and when children begin to act like children (God forbid), then many believe them in need of help, or as it turns, in need of drugs.

Whether the bill passes through the state legislature or not is pending, yet what this issue raises is far more important than if Johnny gets to walk to the nurse's office for a hit of Ritalin or whether he's allowed to cut a few lines on his desk.

Children, although not wholly culpable, are not the only group being rushed to the pharmacy. Millions of adults are also over-prescribed by doctors with anti-depressants. This Prozac blitzkrieg is designed to eliminate moderate psychological problems. Recent data illustrates otherwise, showing that the majority of those taking prescribed mood-altering drugs should not be taking them at all.

The over-diagnosis by doctors of people who suffer from the psychological problems that warrant mood-altering drugs is helping to create a pharmo-dependent society. Statistic upon statistic has surfaced in recent years which shows that most people do not have attention deficit disorder, or any other of its sub-branch cousins. A normal child, or adult, with unique behavioral patterns is now thought to be one step away from joining the Marilyn Manson tour.

This cultural phenomenon with quick-fix-it pills shows that we look at anger and depression as psychological black-holes, when in fact they are not. Drugs such as Prozac and Ritalin have made it close to possible for our generation to live in a world absent of negativity and curious children, the outcome being children who act like jaded adults and adults who act like children.

It goes without saying that extreme individual cases do exist, and these drugs are made for those individuals. But to make readily available to everyone drugs that dull the mind is not only abusive, but robs individuals from feeling the ups and downs of life. These drugs may be numbing our children, and adults, from feeling events intrinsic to the formation of their psychological make-up.

It is evident that people don't want children anymore, they want Gap Kid-wearing trophies. Parents want quiet children who work around career schedules. Adults themselves wish to be spoiled children, replacing Gap with Gucci, and Tonka for Benz. Sadly, drugs play an important role in making this agenda real.

Cute and easy seem to be the prevalent two words in our lives, and getting there is as easy as making an appointment with a psychiatrist that has a loose prescription pad. Somehow, I thought people wanted more from life, especially more for their children. Maybe A Brave New World isn't all that its cracked up to be.