Not So Prosaic Prozac: The Quest for Compliant Lads

 by Carol Turoff  

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The fact that the spate of mass killings is inextricably linked to mood inhibitors should speak louder than the desire for more placid boys.

It has happened again.

Another school shooting. More recriminations from administrators and parents. They are lobbed back and forth over the net of horror and sorrow, with blame bouncing into every corner of the court. As a society, we are becoming inured to the horrific. The shocking is becoming mundane. Do we even remember this killer’s name?

The causes are myriad: violent video games, absentee and self-indulgent parents, graphic depictions in slasher films, less participation in sports and scouting, the wholesome activities that earlier generations viewed as standard fare. There is an absurd preoccupation with notions of self-esteem, appallingly unaccompanied by sufficient attention to instilling a sense of responsibility. Factor in the grievous lack of on-site fathers in the lives of far too many children. On varying levels, all of these are contributory factors. However, the most menacing culprit is the alarming rise in medication of children.

Teachers, dealing with classrooms filled with problems not previously encountered, simply need a less challenging Johnny. When the parent-teacher conferences roll around, the subject of behavior-modifying Ritalin is often mentioned; now conveniently available in transdermal patches for ease of application. We have a litany of previously undiagnosed maladies which need immediate attention. There are no longer boys with spirit or rambunctious children. Today they are suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. We have become so comfortable with the terminology, we refer to them by their acronyms, ADD or ADHD. The concepts of redirecting attention or challenging the often boundless capacities of energetic young minds and bodies are outmoded. Overly busy parents are dispatched to the pediatrician, who is frequently accommodating in filling out the prescription to “level off” the exhausting demands parenting or teaching boys can present.

Literature from the ADHD Information Library informs teachers how best to identify children who have problems significant enough to recommend drug treatment. “High levels of distractibility or inattention, impulsiveness and often excessive motor activity levels,” are causes to investigate drug therapy. (Sounds suspiciously like the normal sons many of us raised.) Under the heading, “Resources for Teachers,” there is further advice: “In some hyperactive kids there is an uneven flow of blood to the brain, with some parts of the brain getting too much blood flow and other centers not getting as much. Certain medications and other treatment can be used to address these problems,” they are told. How many parents would be reassured knowing this type of information is what Johnny and Suzy’s teacher is getting along with the fifth-grade instructional guide.

Ritalin has become the gateway drug. Given at earlier ages, it facilitates the route to Prozac and other behavior altering pharmaceuticals. Recent reports highlight Prozac or Ritalin as the common threads linking many young murderers, although some school shooters were also taking the mood-altering medications Paxil and Luvox.

On March 21, 2005, 16-year old shooter, Jeff Wiese, murdered his grandfather and the man’s girlfriend on Minnesota’s Red Lake Indian Reservation, near the Canadian border. He then embarked on a killing frenzy at his high school where he shot five classmates, a teacher and an unarmed school guard, before turning the gun on himself. Wiese was being medicated with Prozac.

Linking violence to psychiatric drugs isn’t much of a leap. Since 1997, the evidence has mounted. In the last half of that year alone, there were three notorious crimes in which the young killers were taking prescribed mood altering drugs.

Jeremy Strohmeyer, age 18, raped and murdered a 7-year-old girl in a Las Vegas public restroom. Allowed to wander the casino in the pre-dawn hours as her father gambled, she was videotaped being led off by Strohmeyer, who had been diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Dexedrine, a Ritalin-like drug, prior to the killing.

Within months of that atrocious act, a Pearl, Miss., 16-year-old, Luke Woodham, savagely beat his mother with a baseball bat and then stabbed her to death before killing two female classmates at his high school. Seven others were wounded by the hail of gunfire. He was medicated with Prozac.

Before the end of that year, Michael Carneal, a 14-year-old on Ritalin, opened fire on students participating in a prayer meeting at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. Three teenagers were killed and five others seriously wounded, one of whom was paralyzed.

The bloody rampage continued the following year in Huntsville, Ala., as Jeffery Franklin, a 17-year old on Ritalin, used a hatchet to bludgeon his parents to death. Using the same weapon, he brutalized his 12-year-old sister and 6- and nine-year-old brothers, causing critical head and facial injuries.

By spring of 1998, in Jonesboro, Ark., camouflage-clad 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson pulled a fire alarm at their middle school. As the students and teachers filed out of the buildings, the shooters, concealed in a wooded area behind the school, targeted and killed four students, one teacher and severely wounded 10 others. Reports indicated the boys were on Ritalin.

Shortly thereafter, another horrific school massacre occurred in Springfield, Ore. After murdering his parents, 15-year-old Kipland Kinkel continued on to his high school, where in a frenzied rampage he killed two students and wounded 22 others. Kinkel, a bomb builder, was arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. He had been prescribed both Ritalin and Prozac.

In a less disastrous, but still illustrative case, 15-year-old Shawn Cooper, of Notus, Idaho took a 12-gauge shotgun to school, holding his terrified classmates hostage. One student was wounded while Cooper repeatedly fired rounds. Cooper was on Ritalin.

The grisly and premeditated carnage at Columbine High School also provides a connective link to behavior-modifying drugs. Overindulged and under-supervised, black trench-coat wearing teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher in Littleton, Colo., before taking their own lives. Harris was on the anti-depressant Luvox. Posting their contempt for fellow classmates on websites and detailing their violent plans in journals, they built pipe bombs in hopes of killing hundreds of students.

T.J. Solomon, a 15-year-old high school student in Conyers, Ga., taking prescribed Ritalin, opened fire at his school, wounding six of his classmates.

These crimes are not related to inner-city gang violence. In fact, the majority took place in rural settings. The murderers share the distinct commonality of being medicated with behavior-altering pharmaceuticals. Scant information detailing the severity of the side effects of these drugs appears to be available to parents. The FDA has acknowledged that Prozac enhances mental instability, especially in children, causing homicidal and psychotically delusional responses. Still, Miss Jones, the young teacher down the hall, has become the dealer, with parents making the buys on behalf of their own children. The fact that the spate of mass killings is inextricably linked to mood inhibitors should speak louder than the desire for more placid boys.

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