Posted by MarkinBoston on February 12, 2001, at 13:21:47
In reply to antidepressants are drugs, drugs are drugs, posted by dennis on February 11, 2001, at 15:42:53
I agree with the drugs are drugs thinking. They all have benefits, side-effects, and risks. That doesn't translate into which ones are legal or illegal as much as politics. Cigarettes are highly addictive and kill over 400,000 Americans a year. GHB, pot, mushrooms, MDMA, and LSD are far less addictive and don't kill many people, yet are illegal. Pot and GHB even have medical value. GHB is up for FDA approval next month as an orphan drug.
> It seems to me that taking antidepressants is a lot like taking small doses of amphetamines or cocaine. If you think about it, people who take ADs suffer the same problems as people useing these illegal drugs, and people useing ADs can feel euporic.
I think many people using illegal drugs are self-medicating to treat a problem, bio-chemical, situational, or psychological. So, someone addicted to cocaine or meth may have a dopaminergic brain dysfunction for example. Meth is actually schedule II, but is the current DEA whipping boy.
> All the drugs work in slightly different ways but they all affect the same chemicals in your brain, such as seritonin or dopamine for example. Users of ADs experience withdrawal after stoping the drug, they can build a tolerance to the drug needing higher doses and eventually experience AD poopout, a person useing ADs can have problems with proper mental functioning.
There is some doublespeak. When Effexor raises blood pressure or temperature, its a side-effect. When cocaine or E does it, its risk of death. When someone drives a car under the influence of alchohol or an illegal drug, they are a criminal while other impairments are aften not prosecuted like: being tired and falling asleep, taking Benedryl, being old and cognitively impaired etc.
> I have also noticed that when a antidepressant works, the improved mood or happiness feels very artificial, not exactly the kind of happy feeling you would feel if you were drug free. It seems to me that drugs like amphetamines and other illegal drugs that we as a society have classified as dangerous and haveing no medical value are exactly like antidepressants drugs. It seems to me that SSRIs are not fixing a chemical imbalance in the brain, they are makeing a chemical imbalance in the brain which makes the person feel better.
ADs may create an artificial feeling for some, but its a closer approximation of normal than nothing at all or illegal drugs which have very different methods of action. ADs are unlike many illegal drugs in that more does not make you feel better, so the addictive aspect of taking more and more does not exist.
My personal beef with the AMA/DEA/FDA is about treatment for excess weight. Their mantra is: "Eat a blanced diet and exercise regularly." The problem is that the mantra is not working. Saying it louder or more often isn't slowing the problem.
Amphetimines are considered undesireable for weight management because they are short-term in nature. I don't disagree, but so is the mantra, with study after study showing 90% don't continue to diet and exercise, gaining the weight back. So, what's the difference? Both are temporary.
The AMA used to claim anabolic steroids didn't work. This was like big tobacco saying cigarettes wern't addictive. Now the tune is: OK, they work, but have very little application. One of the risk factors for heart disease is abdominal (visceral) fat. So, what best targets that? The mantra? No. Its anabolic steroids and Growth Hormone. Yet, the AMA reserves them only for those who are deficient, when even physiologic (within the range found in normal people) doses would combat the problem. The AMA simply atributes where you get fat to genes. More accurately, its hormone levels affected by genes, age, and adiposity level.
poster:MarkinBoston
thread:53758
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010212/msgs/53812.html