Legal drug use may be greater problem

In case you missed it, while some focus on the scourge of medical marijuana — blaming marijuana for the actions of criminally minded prescription addicts — this recent press regarding medical marijuana has prompted me to think about the bigger picture of medication use in our young people, and our society at large.

Recently released data from Medco informs us regarding the impact of corporate policies, whether they be pharmaceuticals, food or insurance policies:

¥ One-in-four children took drugs for chronic conditions in 2009.

¥ Children were the leading growth demographic for the pharmaceutical industry in 2009, with an increase of prescription-drug use nearly four times higher than the overall population.

¥ More than one-in-four of insured children in the U.S. and nearly 30 percent of adolescents aged 10-19 took at least one prescription medicine to treat a chronic condition in 2009.

¥ Since 2001, our obesity problem fueled a 50 percent increase in cholesterol-lowering drug use among those ages 10-19, a 24 percent increase in use of blood-pressure medicines, and a whopping 147 percent jump in adolescents taking heart burn and acid reflux drugs.

¥ Girls between the ages of 10 and 19 showed the greatest jump at nearly 200 percent over nine years.

¥ Children taking anti-psychotics, which are increasingly being prescribed for depression and anxiety, have doubled since 2001, according to Medco's nine-year analysis.

¥ ADHD drug use was up 9.1 percent last year, representing a 23.8 percent rise in spending, with the greatest increase among those age 20-34 (21.2 percent).

The 'scourge of marijuana murderers' sells papers, increases TV viewing share. The larger true threat, however, is not our local home-grown medical marijuana providers, but the "legitimate" big corporate pharmaceutical companies who have bombarded us and our kids with medications and unhealthy food — often through corporate manipulation of our food supply and over utilization of medications.

True, the medical marijuana laws have problems due to the vagueness of the legislation, and the focus needs to be fixing them, not denying care for those that have legitimate medical needs.

The "in-your-face" legalization crowd is also muddying the waters of these two separate aspects of debate.

But let's keep our perspective — drugstores get burglarized and people get harmed during many of these events, but nobody calls for closing down drugstores or only allowing them in the county.

This all or nothing disproportionate approach vilifies some of the lesser impact drugs, while paying relatively little attention to what's going on across the board appears to me to be a giant misdirection play.

Many drugs can cause harm or do good — alcohol, marijuana, Loritabs, etc. But there are degrees of harm, as well as by comparison, much more serious underlying problems that we face in our culture that are getting way less local media and attention that they deserve.

We need awareness programs regarding lifestyle changes for our children's' and young adults' daily lives. This includes information about exercise, diet and mental health, as well as manipulative chemistry, where the combining of fat, salt and sweeteners by the corporate food industry turns off our 'switches' that tells us we are full. You can bet we didn't eat just one.

We need a serious big picture perspective readjustment. This demands attention to wise resource allocation in accordance with facts and prevention education (including the preventative importance of 'safe" human connections), while allowing for legitimate medical needs — not this knee-jerk all-or-nothing emotional reasoning which is consistent with yet another wrongheaded rebirth of the failed 30 year drug war propaganda.

Andy Hudak lives in Whitefish.