Edmonton Sun, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Brian Beaumont's Letter

LETTERS
July 20

I would like to comment on your article "Youth violence rampant." Due to the Young Offenders Act, it is not known yet if the shooter in Taber was on a psychiatric drug, but it should be investigated. T.J. Solomon, the latest school shooter from Georgia, was yet another case of a teenager who became violent while on psychiatric drugs, in this case the amphetamine-like drug Ritalin. Just a month earlier, Eric Harris, the ring leader of the Columbine high school massacre, was on the psychiatric drug Luvox (an antidepressant). Kip Kinkel, who killed his own parents and then went on a shooting rampage at his school in Springfield, Oregon was on Prozac (an antidepressant) and Ritalin. All of these teens share a common factor which is not being addressed in the media: they were all on mind-altering psychiatric drugs. It is fast becoming common knowledge that the potential side effects and withdrawal effects of psychiatric drugs can produce severe violent tendencies and aggression. In Canada alone, the production of Ritalin has increased 500%. Anyone attempting to isolate the reasons for increased violence in schools would be well advised to take a hard look at the effects psychiatry and psychology have had on our youth. The rising statistics of government funding to psychiatry and psychology parallels the rising statistics of teen violence.

Brian Beaumont
Citizens Commission on Human Rights

Editor's comment: These are very valid points!

       

Our Response

LETTERS
August 4

BRIAN BEAUMONT'S letter of July 20 commenting on the article "Youth violence rampant," demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of cause and effect. Beaumont attributes the recent teen-shooting violence in Canada and the U.S. to the effects of psychiatric drugs. I would point out that Beaumont's Citizens Commission on Human Rights is a Scientology organization whose charter is to destroy the psychiatric profession. CCHR masks its true goals in its more palatable anti-drug message. There is no direct cause-and-effect connection between psychiatric drugs and violence, and, in fact, there is no scientific evidence that these particular drugs produce violent behaviour. What Beaumont conveniently overlooks in forwarding CCHR's agenda is that these teens were emotionally troubled individuals — the reason they were taking medication. Isn't it more likely their emotional conditions contributed to their actions, rather than the medications prescribed to regulate their moods? Perhaps equally disheartening is the editor's nod to Beaumont's logic. Your readers deserve rational thinking, not the furtherance of the semi-hysterical allegations of a religious cult with a dangerous agenda.

Ted Mayett

Editor's comment: Ignore the Scientology-CCHR campaign, much of what Beaumont says is still true.

The editor also lacks an understanding of cause-and-effect. Because these youths were all emotionally troubled, they might have committed these same acts of violence even if NOT on psychiatric medication. To quote an old saw, "When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". That is why it was necessary to mention CCHR's mission to eradicate psychiatry — they are unwilling to consider explanations other than drugs. Note that they conveniently overlook that Dylan Kliebold, the second shooter in the Columbine tragedy, was NOT on psychiatric medication (as well as many multiple-murderers like Ted Bundy, the Boston Strangler, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Zodiac Killer, Ted Kaczynski, the Birmingham Church killers, Timothy McVeigh, the 9/11 terrorists and many others). How do they explain his actions? The fact that most of these young shooters were taking psychiatric medication is of interest, of course, and worth further study, but their medication is only "associated" with their violence at this point, not the proven "cause" of it. It would be as logically true to say that they all had psychological problems; they were all male; they wore black; they were teens; or they had strawberry jam for breakfast that morning. So far, there is no scientific evidence that psychiatric medication CAUSES violence. We need to be very sceptical of uneducated people with questionable agendas (and editors who endorse them) in matters concerning something so important as human beings' health.

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