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published in: European Newsletter of (ex-) Users
and Survivors of Psychiatry, No. 6 (Spring 1997), pp. 4-5
Deutsche
Übersetzung |
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Peter
Lehmann
For and Against Psychotropic Drugs
Proposal as position-paper for the European
Network of (ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
[This paper is a translation of the shortened last part of my
résumé in my (German language) two-volume book "Schöne
neue Psychiatrie" ("Brave
new psychiatry"), Vol. 1: "Wie
Chemie und Strom auf Geist und Psyche wirken" ("The
effects of chemistry and current on mind and psyche"), Vol.
2: "Wie
Psychopharmaka den Körper verändern" ("How
psychiatric drugs change the body"), Berlin: Peter Lehmann
Antipsychiatrieverlag 1996.]
Assessing the administration and taking of psychotropic drugs is
an especially controversial issue. Taking neuroleptics, antidepressants, lithium,
antiepileptics (administered as psychotropic drugs), psychostimulants (administered
to children in order to subdue them) and tranquilizers can lead to apathy, emotional
deadness, depression, suicidal states, paradoxical agitation, confusion and delirium,
intellectual disturbances, loss of creativity, lack of concentration, memory problems,
epileptic attacks, weakening of the immune system, hormonal and sexual disturbances,
chromosomal and pregnancy damage, blood damage, disturbance of body temperature
regulation, heart problems, liver and kidney damage, skin and eye damage, parkinsonian
disturbances, hyperkinesia, muscle cramps, movement stereotypy, or much more.
On the other side, many individuals made the experience, that they cannot exist
in their life-conditions now without taking these psychiatric drugs. [This sentence
I added as a result of the discussion of the paper in Reading (England) in January
1997.] It is up to every individual to decide for herself or himself if,
for whatever reason, they want to take these substances. However, the following
arguments do not reflect a context conducive to free decision-making nor do they
speak for a care-free liberal attitude: The treated individuals
are usually not informed of the risks – neither of those which exist nor
of those which are possible or cannot be excluded. The treated individuals do
not know that substances are banned from the market in some countries but sold
without restrictions in other countries. For example, penfluridol (brand names:
Cyperon, Flupidol, Longoperidol, Longoran, Micefal, Semap) is banned in certain
countries as a possible carcinogen, remoxiprid (brand name: Roxiam) because it
is associated with blood damage, and triazolam (brand names: Apo-Triazo, Dumozolam,
Halcion, Novidorm, Novodorm, Novo-Triolam, Nuctane, Nu-triazo, Rilamir, Somniton,
Songar, Triasan, Triazoral) in connection with amnesia and black-outs.
Those who decide about the admission of these risk-connected substances onto the
pharmaceutical market are profit-oriented companies, doctors who are either dependent
on or sponsored by such businesses, or federal health bureaucrats who have yet
to prove that the health of the treated individuals by psychiatry or other recipients
of tested drugs play a central role for them in their deliberations. 'Patients'-groups
and other related groups are not part of the decision-making process concerning
the admission or banning of psychotropic drugs. In court cases
concerning damages, the burden of proof lies entirely on the shoulders of the
treated individuals by the substances. It is not the financially secure company
which needs to prove that the hazardous substances which it produces does not
cause the damages in question, but rather the usually financially insecure person
suffering the damages who, in drawn-out proceedings, has to prove that specific
damage can be directly and exclusively traced to the administered drug.
Psychotropic drugs are often administered forcibly. An especially criminal example
is the forcible administration of psychotropic drugs to women of child-bearing
age without possible pregnancy being taken into account. More
and more defenseless older people are administered these substances as a way of
chemically managing their care-taking. More and more children – who do not
have the possibility of making their own decisions – receive psychotropic
drugs in order to adapt them through chemical means to an environment hostile
to children. More and more women receive psychotropic drugs to chemically neutralize
their disruptive reactions to silencing and restrictive patriarchal living conditions.
More and more people who come into conflict with the law receive psychotropic
drugs in order to keep them quiet in prisons or to break their resistance to deportation.
The vast spectrum of inter- and intraindividual effects make it impossible to
predict the effect of a specific dosage of a substance. All known damages associated
with all types of psychotropic drugs have appeared independent of the dosage and
within a relatively short amount of time, sometimes even after taking a small
dosage only once. More and more people receive combinations of
different psychotropic drugs. Their effects on each other as well as their combined
effect is unpredictable. All psychotropic drugs create dependency,
although prescribers of the substances deny the dependency-forming effects (except
in the case of tranquilizers). They also remain silent concerning the possible
withdrawal effects, rebound effects, hypersensitive reaction of the receptors
and irreversible damage which can appear after one stops taking the drugs, or
they even redefine these effects as new symptoms. Examples of damage caused by
psychotropic treatment which can appear during the treatment as well as while
coming off of the drugs or even after one has stopped using them altogether include:
chronic fear after long-term administration of antidepressants or tranquilizers,
chronic brain damage after the combined administration of lithium and neuroleptic
drugs, tardive dyskinesia (dystonia, movement sterotypy, and hyperkinesia) as
well as tardive psychosis after the administration of neuroleptic drugs.
There are hardly any in-patient treatment facilities to support those dealing
with the effects of coming off of psychotropic drugs. At present
there are attempts being made by psychiatric associations, pharmaceutical companies
and family-member organisations (which are either ideologically influenced or
financially supported by these companies) to enforce and compel the taking of
psychiatric drugs, especially the life-long consumption of the drugs. These attemps
are being made through legal measures, perfecting surveillance and enforcement
in such institutions as intermediate-care living projects, and developing new
forms of drug administering. There exists neither the right to
psychotropic-free treatment nor non-psychiatric crisis facilities or financially
secure self-help and user-controlled centers. - None of the named psychotropic
drugs solve any kind of psychological problem which is of a social nature. As
a rule, they make it harder to solve these problems, regardless of whether one
has worked on the problem through individual self-help, group-support or paid
psychotherapy. After one has stopped taking the psychiatric drugs – if it
ever actually comes to that point – the conditions are usually worse than
before, making it even more difficult to solve the problems which originally led
to the implementation of the psychotropic drugs.
The administration
and usage of psychotropic drugs is, for all these reasons, to be judged with great
scepticism. Nevertheless, the individual's decision to take psychotropic drugs
should be respected. This is especially the case if the individual, making his
or her own thought-out decision can, by taking as small, low-toxic and low-risk
a dosage as possible for as short a time as possible, survive an otherwise hopeless
situation which would lead to being put at the mercy of the violence of institutionalized
psychiatry and the conflict situations it entails. It is also important to respect
individual decisions to take psychotropic drugs regardless of the reasons, the
dosage, the time-span and how informed the individual is or is not. Those who
especially deserve understanding are those who, because of psychiatrogene nerve
damage, are forced to continue taking these drugs in order to survive. This group
of individuals make it clear how important it is to avoid as far as possible ever
taking psychotropic drugs to begin with. We need to reflect on the tension
between, on the one hand, the needs of the individuals in question who have a
right to define their own conflicts, needs and risk threshhold, and, on the other
hand, the power of biological psychiatry, irresponsible politicians, family-member
associations which get involved in internal family conflicts, and profit-oriented
pharmaceutical companies. While the needs of the individuals need to be respected,
the power of these institutions needs to be restrained. This tension can only
be reduced on a long-term basis if consumers of psychotropic drugs as well as
those who are administered these drugs forcibly are guaranteed the following:
1) diagnosis-independent human rights [It should not be possible to dispense a
human (or civic) right because of a psychiatric diagnosis.]; 2) easy access to
financial compensation when necessary; 3) a right to psychotropic drug-free help;
and, 4) appropriate alternative non-psychiatric help. In Reading at our
conference we decided to publish this proposal-paper in our newsletter. If you
have commentaries, please send them to the editorial department (Maths).
Copyright by Peter Lehmann 1997 | |
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