16 Henrico middle school students charged in prescription drug case

Holy Prozac! Where do I begin? Let’s shed light on some myths perpetuated by several agents of the Therapeutic State at this site. Of course, if one already adheres to the belief in mental illness as disease, then one may stop reading at this point. No rational argument against such a tenet will convince one otherwise.

Mental illness is a medical metaphor to describe a behavioral disorder, such as schizophrenia, as an “illness” or “disease”. To wit, if you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist. If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic. While people behave and think in ways that are very disturbing, this does not mean they have a disease. To be a true disease, the entity must somehow be capable of being approached, measured, or tested in scientific fashion. Disease must be found on the autopsy table and meet pathological definition instead of being voted into existence by members of the American Psychiatric Association (e.g., ADHD, OCD, bipolar depression, etc.).

Mental illnesses are “like a” disease,  putting mental illness in a semantic metaphorical language arts category. Psychiatry is a pseudo-science that parodies medicine by using medical-sounding words invented over the last 100 years. Psychiatrists are but “soul doctors”, the successors of priests, who deal with the spiritual “problems in living” that have troubled people forever. Psychiatry, through various Mental Health Acts has become the secular state religion. It is a social control system, which disguises itself under the claims of scientificity. The notion that biological psychiatry is a real science or a genuine branch of medicine has been challenged by numerous critics including Dr. Thomas Szasz, Libertarian Psychiatrist and Michel Foucault in Madness and Civilization.

If we accept that “mental illness” is a euphemism for behaviors that are disapproved of, then the state has no right to force psychiatric “treatment” on these individuals. Similarly, the state should not be able to interfere in mental health practices between consenting adults (e.g., by legally controlling the supply of psychotropic drugs or psychiatric medication). The medicalization of government produces a “therapeutic state,“ designating someone as “insane” or as a “drug addict.” The same persecution which has targeted witches, Jews, Gypsies or homosexuals now targets “drug addicts” and “insane” people. All these categories of people were taken as scapegoats of the community in ritual ceremonies.

In sum, I am not opposed to the practice of psychiatry if it is non-coercive. Psychiatry should be a contractual service between consenting adults with no state involvement. That said, involuntary mental hospitalization is a crime against humanity. If unopposed, involuntary hospitalization will expand into “pharmacratic” dictatorship.

On may continue to buy into the myths of the therapeutic state if one so chooses. For me, however, I will fight to the death for individual freedom and autonomy and against the reduction of human behavior to faulty biological synapses, the laughable belief in “chemical imbalances,” and other such nonsense.

To Travis
I have been reading the comments between you and Ella. I must first say that your lack of education shows in many aspects.  You lack the knowledge of Psychiatry, the human body, biology, research, and you certainly lack common sense. What first really stood out to me was your comment on hysteria.  The fact that you say that it was women acting out against men is one, arrogant and two, completely not what hysteria was.  In layman’s terms hysteria was invented by men due to their lack of understanding of the female body.  Please note that the hysteria that we know today is not the same hysteria that you reference in your post. When the concept of hysteria came about in the 1800’s men thought that it was due to the lack of sexual intercourse and was common mostly in teenage girls.  Therefore, men found that “pelvic stimulation” was the cure.  Go figure!  This was not a part of the study of psychiatry that you like to belittle and be so close minded about.  I like to ask people like you if you feel very alone in your little world that revolves around the ideas that only you believe.  I wonder why you think that all the educated people that prove that Bipolar, Depression, ADD, ADHD, and so on are proven mental illnesses are wrong and little ole you is correct.  Don’t you see that the common WRONG denominator here is you?  Do you really believe that all of these people are wrong and you have all the correct answers? As for your reference to “fatal side affects” of these drugs.  It is the side affects of having a mental illness that causes these sad fatalities not the drugs themselves. I do agree that there is more of a tendency for doctors to prescribe drugs to children today, however, that should not cloud the fact that there are still many who have and will greatly benefit from the use of many of these drugs. I also agree that adults are partly to blame they need to be more aware of the whereabouts of these medications.  However, we all know that no matter how much we educate our youth about drugs, illicit or prescribed, that they will still experiment.  My big question to you Travis is; how do you describe murderer and rapists?  Do they not have some kind of mental illness that causes these devastating acts of violence?  If so, do you not think that if there were medications and therapy out there to help prevent such acts that we should prevent them from receiving them so as to protect ourselves?

To XYZ your still missing the point of my comments. People in so called better areas never accept the fact that it can happen to them (drugs,drinking & driving, etc.)Its just plain fact and as many have commented when it happens in other areas of county or City then its news even its a blurb but rarely is it news about the Camelot that is the West end until now because of the number of students involved. Why weren’t the parents monitoring the boy who initially gave out the pills? Why did he have access to the medication on his own? Trust doesn’t come into the picture when it comes to drugs, prescription or otherwise. Always know that the tempation is out there in all levels of society so these parents should have been more deligent. My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD when she was 3 years old and I chose not to give her any medication but she had acupuncture treatments and learned to meditate and now is an Honor Roll and will graduate early from HS so I agree parents are too quick to believe doctors and find other forms to help their children.

mahale, I did mention the movie TRAFFIC, where Michael Douglass’ daughter gets addicted even though Michael was a drug czar. That shows how vulnerable our kids are, regardless of family background. This is the war, we all citizens have to fight, instead of indulging into class wars of West-end vs. East-end, which dee65 was trying to divert (discussion) to.

SCRIBE, I am sure the students already had the medication. It is not unheard of for a middle school aged child to have ADHD. The medicine is suppose to be checked in to the school nurse by the parent but I am sure they have medicine at home and by that age the parents probably trust their children to take their own medicine