Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 10:47 AM 7/9/96, JR@ns.cnb.uam.es wrote:
>Hey Perry,
>
>        I think you are taking this too far. I believe that almost nobody
>(there are always some exceptions) will deny the existence of disease. And
>while Tim may not be a great doctor and even totally wrong in the case he
>stated, the original point was not to discuss a specific medical case.

Indeed. In reading the comments here, it seems that some are setting up a
straw man series of arguments, and then knocking them down:

-- "Tim says Attention Deficit Disorder does not exist."

-- "Tim says Ritalin does not work."

-- "Tim claims to know better than doctors."

-- "Tim is against using aspirin, penicillin, and other drugs."

-- "Tim wishes to interfere with the choices of others."

And so on.

In actuality, I have made *none* of these points.

Instead, what I recounted was a telling anecdote about the
over-medication--in my opinion of course, based on direct observation--of
the child of a friend of mine. And my larger point was the _hypocrisy_
issue, that we tell our children to "Just say No! to drugs" while popping
pills in their mouths. We are teaching children to "self-medicate." Whether
these children continue to self-medicate later in life is unknown.

As to choice, I am not interfering in any way, despite a strange claim to
the contrary. My friend simply refuses to be a pill dispenser to keep a kid
"controllable," especially when he has seen the kid in an "unmedicated"
state and finds him much more personable, happy, and eminently
controllable. The mother, Vickie, simply cannot impose discipline on him
and, in our opinion, uses his Ritalin dose to control him.

Quibbling about whether Ritalin is or is not a depressant, or a stimulant,
or whatever, misses the main points.

I personally never got into the drug thing, and my only drugs of choice are
caffeine (taken straight, in caffeine tablets) and alcohol (preferably in
the form of bourbon or Kentucky sour mash). But if I were advising a
child--my own, or others--I would never lie to them about how horrible all
drugs are, and especially I would challenge "D.A.R.E." programs which use
school time to brainwash them.

I sometimes wear a t-shirt I bought over the Net: "D.A.R.E.  I turned in my
parents and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

(Explanation for non-U.S. persons: "D.A.R.E." stands for "Drug Abuse
Resistance Education," a multi-week school program which brings in local
law enforcement officers to explain the evils of all drugs and which
teaches children how to contact school officials, local law enforcement,
and Child Protective Services should they detect drugs in their homes. This
part has been very controversial, as children turn in their parents for
smoking pot. Even the schools and cops realized things had gotten out of
hand when children were contacting the authorities for wine-drinking and
other such legal drug consumptions. Not surprisingly, civil libertarians
draw parallels with the case of Pavel Morozov, the "Young Hero" of the
Soviet Union who turned in his parents to Stalin's secret police. Hence the
message of the t-shirt.)

Personally, I think these issues are related to Cypherpunk themes. Telling
children to "Just say No! to drugs" without providing nuanced
interpretations of which specific drugs are dangerous, and why, is
esentially lying to them. Dosing them with uppers and downers contradicts
the simplistic message. And teaching them to narc out their parents is
despicable.

Anyone for "C.A.R.E."? Crypto Abuse Resistance Education. "So, boys and
girls, be sure to tell your teacher if you see your Dad or your Mom using
any illegal computer codes. It's for their own good, and they'll thank you
for helping them to be reeducated."

>        And from the very onset Tim explained his point in not building
>a mental control society. And there's no point in denying that it is far
>easier for most societies to have full mental control of their subjects
>(to which technology aids) than to fix the big social problems.

Indeed. My original points seem to be have gotten distorted by others.

(And you ought to see a couple of foaming-at-the-mouth personal messages I
have gotten, including one from a woman "on lithium" (no, not any of the
few regular women posters here). Hey, if "lithium" works, fine. But I
wouldn't pop lithium pills in a child's mouth without some real careful
consideration.)

My point about the mother I mentioned is that she _appears_ to be using
Ritalin to make her child more sedate and more controllable, when my friend
finds that old-fashioned methods work quite well. And my friend has no
plans to be the dispenser of uppers and/or downers to his son's friends.
Children on drugs will have to find their methods of delivery.

And to all those on this list who assume I am "insulting" their ADD
condition, go back and reread my post. I never claimed that ADD does or
does not exist. Maybe it does. Maybe it is partly exaggerated. In any case,
my point was that we cannot tell children that all drugs are evil and then
give them mind-altering drugs. And believe me, most children are bright
enough to eventually see the hypocrisy.

(I should stop now, but I just have to mention the LSD scares of the
mid-60s. As LSD hit the mainstream media, we were bombarded by stories of
how people thought they could fly out of buildings while on LSD. One famous
case, that of Art Linkletter (the Oprah Winfrey of his day). His daughter,
he claimed, flew out of a building while on LSD. Many years later he
admitted--as I recall--that she had long been suffering from major
depression, and that it was most probably a standard suicide...tragic, but
not really caused by LSD. In any case, people in the 60s heard these scare
stories, saw the reality of how their friends behaved on acid, and realized
they'd been fed a line of scare-mongering hype. The dangers of crying
"Wolf!" falsely. This process was repeated a decade or so later with the
media propagating tales of people on "angel dust" (PCP) putting babies in
microwave ovens and committing suicide in horrific ways. True or not, for
whatever twisted reasons, these cases were used to "manufacture consent"
about the dangers of PCP. And then there were the "crack babies," which
more recent analysis shows largely to be a myth. And so on. The Four
Horsemen are riding high.)

--Tim May


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