How is the mental health crisis among America’s children to get “better” if those in power make light of the dangerous mind-altering psychiatric drugs prescribed to the nation’s children?

Case in point, in an effort to highlight the fentanyl problem among children, Pamela Bondi, the capable U.S. Attorney General, spoke during the President’s recent cabinet meeting, essentially pooh-poohing the adverse effects associated with prescription psychiatric drugs. She provided a kind of look here, not here, mentality when it comes to legal drugs. But the example provided couldn’t be more wrong.

Here is where the U.S. Attorney went wrong. “Kids, Bondi says, “are dying everyday because they’re taking this junk laced with something else.” “They don’t know,” Bondi explained, “what they’re taking…they think it’s Tylenol or an Adderall, or a Xanax and it’s laced with fentanyl and they’re dropping dead.”

Excuse me? “They’re taking Tylenol, Adderall and Xanax?” How has this nation come to accept that kids taking these serious, possibly deadly prescription drugs is okay and that it’s only because the kids are taking these prescription drugs “laced’ with fentanyl that it’s now a bad thing?

Is the U.S. Attorney unaware of the possible serious adverse events, deadly events, associated with the prescription drugs Adderall and Xanax? Does she not oversee the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)?  Please say this isn’t the case. Because anyone remotely familiar with the dangers associated with these prescription psychiatric drugs knows how deadly they are…without “mixing” with fentanyl. 

According to the DEA, Adderall is an amphetamine, a stimulant, a controlled substance, a schedule II drug like Ritalin or Vyvanse. Schedule II drugs carry a high potential for misuse, and addiction and can lead to severe psychological or physical dependence. Other Schedule II drugs include fentanyl, opioids, cocaine and heroin. 

Other possible adverse side effects of Adderall include irritability, depression, anger, aggression, psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, mania and severe anxiety to name a few. Now let’s consider Xanax.

The possible side effects associated with the Benzodiazepine, Xanax, include insomnia, anxiety, depression, confused state, agitation, derealization, dream abnormalities, fear, altered mood, hallucinations, aggressive behavior, delusion, depersonalization, hostility, psychosis, rage and suicide.

Again, AbleChild asks the U.S. Attorney why these drugs are discussed as if they are the lesser of two evils? Is the U.S. Attorney aware of how many of America’s children are prescribed these dangerous, even life-threatening drugs every day? 

According to IQVia (formerly IMS Health), the largest vendor of U.S. physician prescribing data, as of 2020, nearly 77 million Americans were prescribed at least one psychiatric mind-altering drug. Among that number are more than 85,000 0–1-year-olds. Nearly four million children between the ages of 1-17 were prescribed ADHD drugs (including Adderall) and more than one million children had been prescribed an anti-anxiety drug (including Xanax).

Too often these drugs are prescribed as “cocktails” of drugs which, in itself, should be a crime. None of the psychiatric prescription drugs commonly prescribed to children, whose minds still are forming, have been tested together. In other words, the makers of Xanax and the makers of Adderall did not get together and conduct clinical trials with both of these drugs to discover how well or badly the drugs worked together. 

Prescribing any of the psychiatric drugs together is nothing short of an experiment. No one prescribing the drugs as a cocktail can explain how the drugs work together, let alone singularly. In fact, the pharmaceutical companies openly admit on its package inserts that they are clueless as to how the drugs “work” as “treatment” for any alleged psychiatric disorder.

There is no doubt that the U.S. Attorney is right about the deadly effects of fentanyl, but to so casually remark about the use of prescription psychiatric drugs along with the illegal fentanyl, does a real disservice to the truth about the dangers associated with the legal prescription psychiatric drugs.

The U.S. Attorney, while obviously concerned about the deaths associated with fentanyl, should be mindful that there is a growing mental health crisis and it is surrounding the legal drugging of America’s children, as it, too, is out of control, can be equally deadly and certainly something not to be discussed lightly.

Be the Voice for the Voiceless

AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.

What you can do.  Sign the Petition calling for federal hearings!

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