Most Americans are on drugs. I realize there is a difference between drug users who obtain their fix from street-corner pharmacists and those prescribed them from licensed physicians. I'm not sure that other people realize how insignificant that difference can be.

I agree Dan. In my opinion it started when pharmaceuticals were allowed to do direct marketing.

Now drug makers do NOT create medicine, they satisfy markets. If there is not a market, they will create one.

Ten years ago, how many of us had heard of GERD, RLS, Adult ADD, etc?

Evergreening was only the beginning. Now new conditions are created to help extend patents on medications.

Sadly, doctors are in on the act as well. One doctor from Elizabethtown admitted to me that he got his vacations every year based on his kickbacks from drug makers. This is why he always prescribed the most expensive medication.

I have a serious illness, one that they say will shorten my life. Some of the newer drugs are responsible for the loss of my pancreas and slow failure of my kidneys.

I was up to 53 pills a day, but have managed to cut that down to about 30. I tell my doctors that it must be generic or I will not take a medicine. Amazingly they do not push so many pills at me that way.

If a medicine is generic, then it has been out for about 17 years, and most long term effects are known.

I spologize for the rant here, Dan. This whole topic makes me sick.

Be well,

Sponge

Isn't that an amazing statistic? Most people I know who are on legal drugs (and they constitute about the same numbers as the national averages) don't convince me they need them. Makes no nevermind to me if they ingest chemicals regularly, whatever works for you I guess. But it seems that in most cases their dependency is based less on need than on needing a psychological crutch or due to general lack of motivation to take better care of themselves.

The use of anti-depressants among women, at least in my personal experience, seems to be rising. Dissatisfaction with life -marriage, homelife, kids, etc - used to be something women either lived with, or dealt with, and it's now become an illness you medicate. (This is not to say there aren't individuals with true clinical depression that medication can relieve.)

I call those ‘boo-hoo’ drugs. Life gets a little tough; things haven’t worked out the way one would have hoped or daily life is not working out to ones satisfaction. Drop a pill to make it all better. I realize that some people absolutely need medication as they are seriously depressed. But a majority of people who I know get them easily from doctors who are more than willing to dispense them to individuals who are not clinically depressed.

Then there are the drugs for the physical quick fix. Drugs for high blood pressure, drugs for high cholesterol, drugs for nervousness. With prescriptions for these drugs being written for people who eat too much; drink too much; don't sleep; take recreation drugs and wouldn’t walk to the refrigerator unless they were starving or needed a beer.

I'm glad the medications are there for the people who really need them. But it says a lot about the society in this country when you see the proliferation of drugs out there. They have medications for everything, even stuff that can easily be remedied by minor changes in lifestyle. Our instant gratification society in action, I guess. I saw on Drudge Report where US children are medicated at a rate 6 times higher than the UK. I guess we have some pretty stressed out kids here in the US!

Sponge, I'm sorry to hear about your illness. I'm going to keep a good thought for you.

Exactamundo AM. Everybody wants the quick fix and the easy way out but taking control of ones life and mind without chemicals be damned.