Comments on: The American view: Drugged to be happy or happy to be drugged?

By: Julius senn

Julius senn — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:37:15 +0000

Very interesting post Julie.
One thing medical professionals, Sighkollogists (!) and other thinkers miss is the nature of humankind in a cotemporary social situation.
For 30,000 years or so we have lived in small groups with only the need for sustenance, procreation, defending territory and so on. Only the last 2,000 years has civilisation begun and only the last 300 or so we have embraced an industrial state of life. The last 50 years have been extremely dynamic in mans development. What I am trying to get at is that we (you and me and everyone else) are not too dissimilar from the ‘we’ of 30,000 years ago. Yet we are faced with living in a state of affairs which is entirely different from what humanity has been used too. On the one hand life is more complex with no large grouping. Yet life is much easier from a physical point of view. We are not going to starve and we have clean water. Those were not certainties for people living 30,000 years ago.
Shallow thinkers such as psychologists and pill givers do not realise this and assume that is the individual who is estranged from wider society. In fact it is wider society and contemporary culture that is estranging many people.
http://welshcartoons.blogspot.com/

By: Margo Quigley

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:32:12 +0000

There was a book called “Listening to Prozac” that touched on the subject of drugging yourself into sameness. Where would all the struggling, tortured artists come from if they all drugged themselves into complacency??

By: John Dixon

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Have to say, I think you’re right – it’s an almost natural consequence of Pharmacy companies being able to advertise direct to end consumers.

Prescribing is a subtle science, diagnosing the root cause of a problem and working through complex webs of interactions, first to find whether there is a suitable medical treatment and then to work out whether it’s applicable in someone’s specific circumstances.

If you have drugs advertised all the complexity and subtlety is lost, and you’re left with the pharmaceutical equivalent of “Persil washes whiter”, making a solution to your problem seem simple, risk-free and effortless. And who wouldn’t want their problems sorted without having to break a sweat or having to try too hard?

It’s difficult enough for doctors and pharmacists, who are constantly bombarded by drug adverts. But at least they spend their working hours dedicated to keeping up to date with practice, and reading through the clinical evidence and license to understand the risks and shortcomings of treatments.

Put simply, it’s a specialist job. I’d no more choose my own complex medication than I’d try surgery on myself.