Letter: Cancel funding for mental health

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Monday, Aug. 16, 1999 | 10:11 a.m.

It would seem reasonable to seek to increase funding for mental health if we assumed that psychiatry and drugs actually helped. But unfortunately, they are making things worse.

The fact is that virtually all, perhaps every single killer was a psychiatric failure to begin with. They were all on psychotropic drugs. Then they killed.

The editorial asks, "Would it not have been nice to treat these killers before they had a chance to turn violent?" But they were treated. That's just the problem.

It is a known fact that drugs such as Prozac, Luvox, Xanax and Ritalin will cause from 4 to 6 percent of people taking them to exhibit psychotic or aggressive behavior. This stuff is being given to our school kids in wholesale lots.

As things stand at the present, we would achieve a vast reduction in senseless violence by canceling funding for mental health altogether.

DON ALEXANDER