Are doctors who prescribe anti-depressants akin to drug dealers?

Doctors doling out happy pills are just as bad as drug pushers
By Janet Street Porter
Last updated at 8:26 AM on 11th July 2011


They are the guilty secret we don’t like to talk about. The acceptable drug we can’t give up. We denigrate people who binge on coke and booze, but what’s so different about a group of prescription drugs doctors are dishing out to women in massive quantities, when all they might need is a regular chat and someone to listen and be supportive?

Anti-depressants are the cure-all of our times, and their grip on a whole generation is now being uncovered. Last week, research indicated that as many as one in three women will take anti-depressants during their lifetime. Nearly one in five keep it a secret and one in ten don’t tell their partners.


Pill popping: But many women just need someone to talk to, not the drugs prescribed by their GPs (posed by models)

That means thousands of women are taking strong medication without the support of a single person. Twenty years ago, we didn’t pop pills on this scale — are we really unable to cope today? And even if these drugs serve a purpose when first prescribed to help with feelings of depression and anxiety, they can be hard to give up when you feel better.

Half of the women that Platform 51 (formerly the YMCA) spoke to for their survey had been taking them for five years, a quarter, for a decade. Ten years on a chemical cosh? Was there no one during that time who might have been a true friend, someone to talk to? Was there no offer from the NHS of counselling or psychiatric support?

Once taking these pills, many women are not monitored regularly — one in four say they wait a year for their treatment to be reviewed. What’s the alternative?

Many experts say that talking therapy is as good as any drug for mild depression — and even serious depression can be alleviated with the right therapist.

Unfortunately, NHS waiting lists for these treatments are long, even though the last government invested hundred of millions of pounds in them. At the same time, the cost of anti-depressants has dropped from £16 a prescription ten years ago to just £6 — and as doctors are pressured for time, no wonder they’d rather hand out pills than come up with non-addictive long-term solutions.

Platform 51 found that more than half of the women who went to the doctor with depression were not offered any other treatment. The number worried about money and the loss of jobs is rising fast — no wonder, when last week it was revealed that the cost of maintaining the same standard of living is costing families 20 per cent more than this time last year.

Anti-depressants are prescribed more in the poorer areas of Britain with high unemployment, such as Gateshead, Blackpool and Redcar than rich places such as Kensington, for example. This is obscene — thousands and thousands of women popping pills which could increase the risk of their autism in their babies, increase birth defects and the incidence of miscarriages by two thirds.

Pregnant women using some anti-depressants are three times as likely to have babies with heart defects.

Frightening stuff — and a huge reason for women not to get hooked on these pills in the first place. But is it too late to turn back the tidal wave of abuse?

Doctors have taken to them like fish to water — the number of anti-depressant prescriptions has risen 95 per cent since 1999, and doubled between 2008 and 2009. By any standards, this is a crisis, but because no one is falling down dead, just walking around like a stoned zombie minding their own business, no one seems bothered.

I am. I hate to think of thousands of women taking these drugs, when there must be a better way to help. There will always be a small number with severe symptoms who can’t manage without anti-depressants — but not 95 per cent of the people who are currently popping them.

It’s a scandal, and the medical profession allowed it to happen. The Coalition has focused on making the NHS work more efficiently, not investing in long-term talking therapies. Helping people cope with the recession, financial constraints and job insecurity requires a well-managed support network, not pills.

People on anti-depressants often find it hard to get off benefits and back to work — that’s why many still take them year after year. Pills should just be a starter solution, not a crutch for life.

CeCe wrote:They're definitely over prescribed but not sure I'd go as far as labeling them drug dealers. Too many people think or are even convinced by some doctors they need them when they don't. But they do benefit a lot of people. Really gray area. There are some bad doctors but not all who prescribe these meds are one of them.

Nystyle709 wrote:Perhaps they shouldnt be quick to prescribe it....but I'm gonna stop short on saying that they are drug dealers. Some people really do need the shit.

Nystyle709 wrote:Perhaps they shouldnt be quick to prescribe it....but I'm gonna stop short on saying that they are drug dealers. Some people really do need the shit.