School shooter took mood-altering drug

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | March 25, 2005 | Joyce Howard Price

[neverdem]

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The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com

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School shooter took mood-altering drug

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 25, 2005

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The teen who went on a deadly shooting rampage at a Minnesota high school Monday was on Prozac, adding to the list of youths involved in similar crimes who were taking antidepressants or other mood-altering medications.

    But medical experts say the role the drugs played in the school shootings is debatable.

    "When you look at the school shooters, some were on Luvox, Prozac, Ritalin, and Paxil. These are mood elevators, but they can push up the psyche and can cause agitation," said Robert Butterworth, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, who specializes in trauma.

    Dr. Robert Findling, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry for University Hospitals of Cleveland, said while some youths "may become more agitated or irritable" while on such drugs, their actions are the result of their illness, not the medication.

    "Association is not the same as causation," he said.

    Jeff Weise, 16, killed nine persons and himself in Red Lake, Minn., making it the second-deadliest school incident in the nation. A cultural coordinator at the school told The Washington Post that he was taking Prozac and had been previously hospitalized for suicidal tendencies.

    The deadliest school shooting occurred in Littleton, Colo. where Eric Harris, 18, who was on Luvox, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 13 persons and themselves at Columbine High School in 1999.

    Other school shooters who took prescription drugs include:

    •Kip Kinkel, an Oregon youth, who in 1998 when he was 15 years old, killed both his parents and then went to his school, where...

[durasell]

Medicine is now a "you get what you pay for" deal. Discount care is a fistful of pills prescribed by a GP with a degree from some second rate school. First rate care is a carefully calibrated dose accompanied by regular visits to the shrink who is up on the latest protocols.

The drugs themselves are the less expensive part of the deal.

[John Lenin]

Let's see here, there weren't many school shootings before we started giving out powerful drugs to kids and most of the shooters were taking powerful drugs. It' doesn't take an Einstein to figure this one out.

[durasell]

There weren't many school shootings prior to mothers dosing the unborn in their womb with drugs, either. Neither were there many school shootings prior to weird kid diets. And, let me also mention the lack of school shootings prior to wide availability of drugs among the pre-teen set.

[John Lenin]

In the 70's we used to laugh about saying "high school" because there were so many drugs floating around at school. Guess what, we had no school shooters and the most you could get from the school nurse was an asprin.

[durasell]

You have kids smoking pot at 9 and 10 years now. And it's not the pot that existed 20 or 30 years ago. This is hybrid stuff. You also have teens taking drugs that contain weird psychotropic cocktails.

What we now have is a situation where kids are getting dosed with odd concoctions from before they are born...does this make for school shooters? Maybe. And when you say that you didn't have kids shooting up the school, I'll bet your school -- like the vast majority -- had a couple kids who showed sociopathic behavior, such as killing small animals or random acts of viciousness.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Nobody has ever claimed that the biochemical mechanisms behind these drugs (or any drugs) are fully understood. Most decisions taken in life -- not just medical ones -- are necessarily taken without absolute understanding of everything involved. But plenty of empirical evidence shows that these drugs are often helpful, and there is really no evidence at all of a causative effect when bad results ensue -- the people taking them were messed up to begin with, and many stay that way in spite of the drugs, and proceed to do things that they were inclined to do in the first place.

What is going on today is an attempt to mask the natural symptoms of abandonment and other increasing dysfunctional cultural practices.

That is quite true, but given these underlying social problems which obviously aren't going to go away overnight, it's not clear that trying to alleviate symptoms with drugs in the meantime, isn't the best approach.

This boy's case would have defied any easy answers, even in a stable close-knit community with a surplus of human and financial resources. From another article: "Weise's father, Daryl Lussier Jr., committed suicide in 1997. Two years later, a serious automobile accident killed a cousin and left Weise's mother partly paralyzed and brain damaged. Then, about two years ago, "his other grandfather on his mom's side passed away." It's not as if back in the "good old days", kids who'd experienced repeated psychological trauma like this, never flipped out and became violent. However, they were much more likely to be institutionalized or incarcerated for a long time, or even permanently, after displaying the kind of warning signs that this boy displayed.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Medicine is now a "you get what you pay for" deal.

When was it not?

[John Lenin]

Ritalin is a derivitive of cocaine and prozak is a mind altering drug. It's almost like they want this kind of stuff to happen. It's a braindead policy to put kids on powerful drugs to perk them up or keep them alert. If anything they should be given downers to take the spunk out of them. 2+2, before drugs were handed out, no shootings, after drugs are handed out, one every few years. We are totally destroying society, it's amazing how differnet things are from 30 years ago.

[durasell]

Technology changed a lot of things...So did increased costs. So did different types of treatment options along with the types of drugs and treatments excluded under some insurance plans.

Fifty years ago a doctor's choices were limited. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company and the local dog catcher received about the same kind of care. Now, with boutique medical practices and the growth of HMOs, there is a wide division between the type of care available to the dog catcher and the CEO.

Mostly, this doesn't matter -- unless you want a house call or a suite for your hospital stay. But for serious illness, it's a matter of life or death.

[durasell]

They're not sure exactly how ritalin works, but somehow it allows some kids to focus more clearly on the task at hand. There are millions of kids on ritalin today -- and at younger and younger ages. Nobody really knows the long term effects. Same with prozac.

[PFKEY]

There seems to be an almost religious belief that the effects of these drugs on the brain are known. They are not.This is so very true.

I was put on a common anti-depressant to help me stop smoking and the results where catastrophic.

It's a long story but I would tell it if anyone was interested.

[Sandy]

I'd be interested in knowing the total percentage of students taking psych medications. I mean if it's close to 100% for instance, the fact that a shooter's on medication becomes pretty irrelevant to the cause of the shooting, imo.

[The Red Zone]

I assume Wellbutrin

[John Lenin]

The more advanced we get the more screwed up society is getting. It's because we are allowing psuedo-human engineering to take over. Maybe you aren't old enough but drugs aren't new, giving young kids designer drugs is. I was pretty hyper when I was a kid and so were a few other people in my class, Im glad I wasn't forced to take prozak or ritalin because I know what drugs do a person from recreational use. They change who you are, usually for the worse if you take them long enough.

[thoughtomator]

Wellbutrin, was it?

[PFKEY]

I assume Wellbutrin.

That is correct and it is not an SSRI but it does play with the brains chemistry.

[durasell]

What do you mean by "the more advanced we get?" I don't see many advancements...

[The Red Zone]

Well, medications can't do squat for moral problems. They can make the mind feel better but they can't control what that mind will be used for.

SSRIs are troublesome drugs in kids.

[John Lenin]

I agree, if you look at the end results we are headed towards the dark ages again. Thinking that we can alter the family stucture and it has no effect on society is assinine.

[durasell]

The family structure is in constant flux. It's already changed once in the 20th century and is due to change again.