Americans have an almost insatiable appetite for drugs. I see it every day. People have been conditioned to take a pill for whatever they feel is wrong with them. And then there’s the other drugs: Tech is a drug. Food is a drug. Consuming and Debt are a drug. Anything to avoid dealing with the reality of our situation. Anything to avoid taking responsibility for our lives and our health. Nope, just take a pill, get stoned or drunk, eat as much as you can and get morbidly obese, stare at your phone like an idiot, and let somebody else fix the problems. Considering how fast our country is falling into the toilet, it’s not surprising.
(Article reprinted in it’s entirety with permission from the author Michael Snyder)
Guest Post by Michael Snyder
The American people are the most drugged people in the history of the planet. Illegal drugs get most of the headlines, but the truth is that the number of Americans that are addicted to legal drugs is far greater than the number of Americans that are addicted to illegal drugs. As you will see below, close to 70 percent of all Americans are currently on at least one prescription drug. In addition, there are 60 million Americans that “abuse alcohol” and 22 million Americans that use illegal drugs. What that means is that almost everyone that you meet is going to be on something. That sounds absolutely crazy but it is true.
We are literally being drugged out of our minds. In fact, as you will read about below, there are 70 million Americans that are taking “mind-altering drugs” right now. If it seems like most people cannot think clearly these days, it is because they can’t. We love our legal drugs and it is getting worse with each passing year. And considering the fact that big corporations are making tens of billions of dollars peddling their drugs to the rest of us, don’t expect things to change any time soon. The following are 19 statistics about the drugging of America that are almost too crazy to believe…
#1 An astounding 70 million Americans are taking legal mind-altering drugs right now.
#2 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctors wrote more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants during 2010.
#3 According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug. An astounding 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.
#4 Americans spent more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.
#5 According to the CDC, approximately 9 out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years old say that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.
#6 There are 60 million Americans that “abuse alcohol”.
#7 According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 22 million Americans use illegal drugs.
#8 Incredibly, more than 11 percent of all Americans that are 12 years of age or older admit that they have driven home under the influence of alcohol at least once during the past year.
#9 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is an unintentional drug overdose death in the United States every 19 minutes.
#10 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.
#11 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#12 According to Alternet, “11 of the 12 new-to-market drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration were priced above $100,000 per-patient per-year” in 2012.
#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#14 Many of these antidepressants contain warnings that “suicidal thoughts” are one of the side effects that should be expected. The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents every year.
#15 In 2010, the average teen in the United States was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs. Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.
#16 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.
#17 A shocking Government Accountability Office report discovered that approximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug.
#18 A survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15 percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription drugs.
#19 It turns out that dealing drugs is extremely profitable. The 11 largest pharmaceutical companies combined to rake in approximately $85,000,000,000 in profits in 2012.
In America today, doctors are trained that there are just two potential solutions to any problem. Either you prescribe a pill or you cut someone open. Surgery and drugs are pretty much the only alternatives they offer us.
And an endless barrage of television commercials have trained all of us to think that there is a “pill for every problem”.
Are you in pain?
Just take a pill.
Are you feeling blue?
Just take a pill.
Do you need a spark in your marriage?
Just take a pill.
And most Americans assume that all of these pills are perfectly safe.
After all, the government would never approve something that wasn’t safe, right?
Sadly, what most Americans don’t realize is that there is a revolving door between big pharmaceutical corporations and the government agencies that supposedly “regulate” them. Many of those that are now in charge of our “safety” have spent their entire careers peddling legal drugs to all of us.
We have become a nation of drugged out zombies, and it is all perfectly legal. The funny thing is that many of these “legal drugs” have just slightly different formulations from their “illegal” counterparts.
If more Americans understood what they were actually taking, would that cause them to stop?
Perhaps some would, but for the most part Americans are totally in love with their drugs and giving them up would not be easy.
Just ask anyone that has tried.
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I have to take meds… won’t go into what they are, but most of them are so that I can “tolerate” one really important one… and that important one keeps me alive, literally.
Problem is, it’s poison. Docs told me straight up that it’s poison. But the risks involved taking it do not outweigh the benefits… so I take it.
I will say that docs prescribe opiate based painkillers WAY too much… do they work? Hell yeah they work! But the tradeoff – becoming a pillhead and possible liver failure from long-term abuse – they don’t tell you about that shit… just push the pills at folks and the docs don’t have to deal with the blowback…
NOT absolving folks from the responsibility of abusing pills, I’m saying that they should be used as a last resort and then ONLY if there is full disclosure about the likelihood of addiction… too often, a doc says “take this shit” and then that’s the end of it… and be honest – which of you all REALLY reads the paperwork that comes with your meds?
Even shots are being pushed on folks… I was offered a flu shot. The following took place..
Me – Hey Doc? If I get the flu, I’m immune for 6 years, right?
Doc – That is true.
Me – And if I get a flu shot, I’m only immune for 6 months, right?
Doc – That is also true.
Me – And there’s more than one type of flu?
Doc – Yes.
Me – So, how do you guys know which flu it is you all are vaccinating for?
Doc – Pharmaceutical companies guess which flu strain will be most prevalent, and then make vaccines for that strain.
Me – Oh. And if they’re wrong?
Doc – Then the flu shot will do you no good.
Me – So, if you were me, would you get a flu shot?
Doc – No, I wouldn’t. But I would also be more careful to try and not get the flu, either.
Me – Okay.. thanks.. .
Going into my 77th year, A Whole Doctor, sir, I am a firm believer in better living through chemistry.
I developed leukemia in 1995 (overseas) and it was not diagnosed until 2003. In the mean time, I got hooked on pain meds (the only solution an incompetent medical profession could supply) and damn near died. I went through a wringing out period, found a pain doc who steered me to an oncologist who finally diagnosed the leukemia (which had been blowing up my spleen to twice it’s normal size, max pain and blocking the lower bowl and between the pain meds to allow me to function, finished any normal function of my stomach.
Finally, two years later, got it properly diagnosed, since the spleen was the only organ (they though) was involved, I more or less managed the pain through radiation every 18 – 24 months or so. Not successfully, you understand, by sufficient for me to function with pain meds.
Then three years ago, the leukemia morphed into lymphoma. Below the diaphragm. Chemo was indicated. I underwent a solid year and a quarter of killer chemo (including doxorubicin and rituximab) which almost cured me to death… Real close. At the end of it, my sweetie was helping me get out of bed to go pee.
Yes, I was extremely lucky to win the genetic lottery to enable me to take the monoclonal antibody treatment!
Now I am on a two year maintenance program of rituximab every two months. I’ve finished a 12 week physical rehab program ( to repair the debilitation of curing me to death!) and at the moment feel better than I did before starting the chemo.
I will, regardless of the criticism of anyone concerning the prescribing of drugs, have much more respect for the Oncology and chemotherapy branch of medicine than I did before. I must still grill my oncologist about longer term prognosis but they’ve managed to keep me aline far beyond what I had thought possible and I intend to continue to intend to write nasty comments for the shit throwing moneys on TBP for some time yet!
MA
“aline” = “alive”.. Sorry about that..
I have read that a sick man is a hero in his own mind but I would say your a fucking hero, Muckster. You’ve taken more shots to the body than Al Pacino in ‘Scarface’ and your still standing. Bravo!
Americans have an almost insatiable appetite for drugs. I see it every day. People have been conditioned to take a pill for whatever they feel is wrong with them. And then there’s the other drugs: Tech is a drug. Food is a drug. Consuming and Debt are a drug. Anything to avoid dealing with the reality of our situation -AWD
Okay, I agree, but how many of the commercials do i see asking my doctor for this rx or that are really needed?
shit, that old astronomist is older than the stars, dont expect Muck to give up the ghost soon, that old coot wlll be raisin a shot o whiskey as my ash is scattered, I like this guy.
advertising serves to make products’ names household words, witness the public tolerance for the mention of blue pill in movies and tv shows. the blue pill became acceptable and a cultural icon was born. even the idea of popping a boner became grist for dinnertime discussion.
AWD, once again I admire you, not for the Beck-esque website you created, but for the truth, albeit counter-productive to your income, you speak.
Neoclassical economics: The school that arose in the last quarter of the 19th century, stripping away the classical concept of economic rent as unearned income. By the late 20th century the term “neoclassical” had come to connote a deductive body of free-trade theory using circular reasoning by tautology, excluding discussion of property, debt and the financial sector’s role in general, taking the existing institutional environment for granted. (See Marginalism and Parallel Universe, and contrast with Structural Problem and Systems Analysis.)
Neoconservatives: Ideologues who oppose government authority and taxation of wealth, except where governments are controlled by the financial and property sector
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kay, lets discuss this
IMO, the government should create the money needed to pay its bills, IE, no taxes, IE no future debt.
Am I wrong?
KB says Kill Bill says: AWD, once again I admire you, not for the Beck-esque website you created,
AWD what website did you create?
TBP is my drug! I’m hooked and I don’t plan on giving it up.
I’m hooked on better living by learning as much as I can about what is natural, is better for the body. TeresaE, Stucky and now the admin has been instrumental in that.
This country is full of weak, wimpy, namby-pamby pissants that want a pill for the smallest of symptoms and then the day off paid.
Some things though we just can’t control. The food we are presented with is full of poison, so we are prescribed more poison, or we get blown up in a fucking war. So I completely understand the situations that Billy, Muck, my sister and many others are going through requires major medical help, surgery included.
“I’m just a simple working man
Gettin’ by the best I can
In this crazy mixed-up muddled-up world that I live in.”
I like Michael Snyder, but some of his lists, and lists in general, provide little by way of problem analysis. They’re just lists.
Anyway, my conventional wisdom after researching a number of issues which come up from time to time, and not in every case, but many times the treatment is take a pill, or diet and exercise.
KB made the point, should doctors prescribe medication for symptoms which can be controlled by non-pharmacological means. If doctors aren’t held to a higher standard of conduct, then where is the moral boundary? Or do they get a pass simply by stating, I’m following the directions (orders) of my practice guidelines, hospital policy, the AAP, my higher ups.
As ObamaCare continues tear apart the social fabric of our nation, when will physicians, PA’s, and NP’s begin running their own clinics, and will they be allowed, or will the black market dominate?
I’ll take the red pill, diet and exercise more, or suffer the consequences. It’s like leaving something at home or the office. If you’re constantly going back to get it, that’s what you’re conditioning yourself to do, instead of doing without that item, and remembering next time.
Cheers!
“KB says Kill Bill says: AWD, once again I admire you, not for the Beck-esque website you created,
AWD what website did you create?”
I haven’t created a website. There’s “angry white dude” (AWD), but it’s not mine, although I do pimp some of their articles.
I can tell you what’s going on around here. Doctors are just vaporizing. They’re quitting and leaving town, no forward address, no letters to other doctors, just up a leaving. The only thoracic surgeon, and several family docs in the last 6 months alone. Doctors that have enough money are getting out of medicine, and many are leaving the country. Kind of like what happened in Nazi, Germany, only this time it’s because of Obamacare. And the liberal bullshit; there aren’t doctors anymore, but “providers”, so you can’t tell if you’re seeing a PA or nurse practitioner, or a fucking nurse, because they’re all providers. The handwriting is on the wall, and doctors are getting the hell out of medicine as fast as they can.
I posted this article so as to generate a discussion as to the ills of our society, WHY people take so many drugs. Oh well.
that’s scary. the msm storyine is that they are taking jobs in hospitals and that will increase healthcare prices as their services carry overhead costs.
Muck, you are very lucky that the treatments and chemicals have worked for you. I, sadly, know others that couldn’t tolerate them and succumbed to chemo or cancer.
And, I am definitely not saying that they did not work for you, as they obviously did and you are rightly happy with the results.
But, as with most health care in this country today, there are alternatives with thousands and thousands of success stories.
What works for one does not necessarily work for another. I’ve seen it time and time again, hell, being allergic to penicillin proved it to me. Penicillin would kill me, yet it saves countless lives a year.
Guess what? I still got diseases that penicillin would cure if I could take it. So I found alternatives and after I became allergic to many of those I set out to find the actual plants and nutrients that many of the drugs were based on because it is obvious the chemicals and my body do not get along.
I so admire your pluck, Muck. Hugs.
I fear my kids would never be given the chance to be where you’re at. The money just won’t be around to pay for it. So it goes, no?