How Many Pills Until Pharmageddon?

by Todd Walker

Expert preppers recommend at least a years worth of the 3 B’s: food (beans), guns and ammo (bullets), and first aid supplies (band aids). I addressed this issue in a previous post about becoming a producer. All this stuff is consumable. What then?

A question I don’t see addressed by many experts is: What happens when the psychotropic drugs run out? How many Adam Lanza-types, armed and drugged, do we work with, live beside, or are married to?

The other day a fellow teacher told me that one of my students in his class must be off his meds. “What happened,” I asked.

“He was flopping on the floor like a fish and making strange sounds and had crazy eyes,” my friend said.

Most times, teachers just send out of control behavior to me to handle. I’ll ask if they took their medicine. The usual reply is negative.

The link between school shootings/violence and legal pharmaceuticals is disturbing to say the least. Here’s a sobering read on the effects of all the mind-altering pills swimming in public schools (Hat Tip to Caroline Cooper – a regular Sherpa commentista). What a disastrous mix: Big Pharma, Medical/Psychiatric Establishment, Industrial Food Complex, and Gun-Free Zone Government Schools. Our appetite for quick fixes, coupled with pharmaceutical profits, places America on top of other pill-popping nations consuming 60% of all psychotropic pills manufactured.

Every year it seems, we hear of another manufactured illness. Ever heard of ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)? Here’s how the Mayo Clinic defines ODD: [NOTE: I added emphasis in bold, a helpful layman’s interpretation for those not familiar with psychobabble, and alternative solutions to pills in brackets]

if your child or teen has a persistent pattern of tantrums [take Jane or Johnny to the woodshed], arguing, and angry or disruptive behavior [see Founding Fathers] toward you and other authority figures [Police State, the collective, Leviathan –  they know what’s best for their subjects citizens] he or she may have oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).

As a parent, you don’t have to go it alone in trying to manage [not raise] a child with oppositional defiant disorder. Doctors, counselors and child development experts [BEWARE of ALL ‘experts’] can help.

Treatment of ODD involves therapy, training to help build positive family interactions, and possibly medications to treat related mental health conditions (follow the money equation: more patients = more money).

A “problem” child often gets labeled with a mental disorder by refusing to submit and obey the oppressive rules, constant spying, and authoritarian rule in public schools. A school counselor pointed out to me that one of my students (we’ll call him John) must have this dreaded ODD mental order. He would often refuse to sit down and shut up. His mom made the decision to take him off the prescription drugs the previous year. He was making great strides in my math class. Unfortunately, the target was already painted on his back. And he knew it. I responded to the genuinely concerned counselor by saying that I think I must have caught the ODD too. This young man and I had a great year together. I ran interference for him as much as possible to give him a chance to learn. You see, once a child gets labeled, the collective memory of staff and teachers can’t be erased. Finally, his mom moved him to another school.

Zombie Factories

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Government schools are the perfect Petri dishes for profitable pharmaceutical companies. Anti-psychotic drugs, once only prescribed to adults, are readily available to school aged children. Unruly children are drugged for social compliance more than for the mental health of the individual. I call it the zombiefication process. Mix a mind-numbing cocktail of strong anti-psychotic drugs and the invisible straightjacket turns any student into a compliant zombie. Even after John’s mom took him off the drugs, I believe his young, developing brain was badly affected.

Parents and teachers embrace and encourage the pill-popping culture in Zombie Factories. In this fantasy world of rainbows and flying unicorns, we can alter behavior with a prescription pill. We are no longer responsible. Big Psychiatry will “save the children” – some doctor, bought by Big Pharma, will make everything okay with a pill. Like I tell my students repeatedly, school is not the real world. The real world is not fair. Everyone doesn’t “win” and get a trophy. It’s even more cruel when living as mind-controlled zombies drugged on legally addictive pills.

Big Pharma’s Best Kept Secret

Can prescription drugs cause you to kill someone? “Absolutely”, says Dr. David Healy, author of Phamageddon. “Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” he adds. Want to find out if the drugs you or a loved one are taking might cause violent behavior? Enter the name of the drug over at the Violence Zone. Even if it’s “just” a pill to help you quit smoking, side effects can be deadly. Don’t expect to hear about this on major media outlets. Pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in keeping journalists inline.

Dr. Mercola reports on a disturbing top-ten list below.

Antidepressants Top List of Most Violence-Inducing Drugs

It’s certainly worth paying heed to drug interactions such as violence and homicidal leanings, both as a patient and as a concerned parent, family member or friend. According to a 2010 study published in the journal PLoS One, half of the top 10 drugs disproportionately linked with violent behavior are antidepressants:

1. Varenicline (Chantix): The number one violence-inducing drug on the list, this anti-smoking medication is 18 times more likely to be linked with violence when compared to other drugs

2. Fluoxetine (Prozac): This drug was the first well-known SSRI antidepressant

3. Paroxetine (Paxil): Another SSRI antidepressant, Paxil is also linked with severe withdrawal symptoms and a risk of birth defects

4. Amphetamines: (Various): Used to treat ADHD

5. Mefoquine (Lariam): A treatment for malaria which is often linked with reports of strange behavior

6. Atomoxetine (Strattera): An ADHD drug that affects the neurotransmitter noradrenaline

7. Triazolam (Halcion): This potentially addictive drug is used to treat insomnia

8. Fluvoxamine (Luvox): Another SSRI antidepressant

9. Venlafaxine (Effexor): An antidepressant also used to treat anxiety disorders

10. Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq): An antidepressant which affects both serotonin and noradrenaline

The big lie laid on our pill-for-everything culture destroys self-reliance and individual responsibility. The food I eat makes a huge difference in my overall health. The S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) served in government school lunchrooms won’t create physical specimens of students, much less mental health. Could our stomachs be connected to our mental health? I think so. I’m not alone. Below you can check out a few resources to put you on the road to enlightenment and self-healing.

• Can Inflammation in this Organ be at the Root of Your Depression?
• Gut and Psychology Syndrome
• Beyond Meds: Alternatives to psychiatry. Nutrition and Gut Health
• Gut Flora and Your Healthy Immune System

The typical food storage recommendations by prepper experts are loaded with foods that destroy the brain-gut-axis. I wrote about my Primal Pantry here. My Down and Dirty Sauerkraut is loaded with gut-healing probiotics. Maybe it’s time to rethink food storage methods.

How many pills?

So, this brings me back to the original question: How many pills? What happens when your personal stock of antidepressants run out? The drug-altered fantasia will disappear when the pain of withdrawal grips the one in ten Americans dependent on psychotropic pills just to get through the day – when times were normal. Times won’t be “normal” when the sh*t hits the fan.

Images of maniacs shooting up innocent victims could pale in comparison once the prescription pill machine grinds to a halt. Adding insult to injury, all the  stuff needed to combat depression are the exact things that will be hard to come by in a prolonged SHTF situation. For instance, proper amounts of sleep, vitamins like B12 and D, omega-3 fats, and exercise all have been proven to help with mental well-being.

Educating yourself, then taking action, could save you and yours lots of future pain. A few small steps now could help you prepare for the coming Pharmageddon.