"Researchers also found that the quantity of prescriptions tripled between 1996 and 2013, but the number of overdoses quadrupled during the same period."

Psych drug overdoses rose 400% over two decades while mass shootings exploded across America

by: J. D. Heyes

Big Pharma is claiming more and more victims every year, but "the system" appears to be on autopilot, and there is little to no political will in Washington, D.C., to reverse course.

As reported by NBC News, new research shows that more Americans than ever before are overdosing on anxiety drugs, but scientists say they aren't sure why (we have an idea – more on that here).

According to the new study, not only are more Americans taking those drugs, which include brand names like Xanax and Valium, but they taking them more of them.

Researchers also found that the quantity of prescriptions tripled between 1996 and 2013, but the number of overdoses quadrupled during the same period. The research was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

More pills to more people equals more ODs

"We found that the death rate from overdoses involving benzodiazepines, also known as 'benzos,' has increased more than four-fold since 1996 — a public health problem that has gone under the radar," said Dr. Marcus Bachhuber of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, a co-leader of the study.

"Overdoses from benzodiazepines have increased at a much faster rate than prescriptions for the drugs, indicating that people have been taking them in a riskier way over time," Bachhuber added.

Big Pharma, with the assistance of the "traditional" medical establishment, has made benzodiazepines extremely popular in the United States. Then again, patients have a responsibility here, too: Too many have allowed themselves to be talked into thinking that for every anxiety or concern they have, no matter how infrequent or minuscule, they need something they can use to deal with it. In steps Big Pharma. And Big Medicine.

In the last century, when drugs like this were not available, Americans did buck up and "deal with" things – not small things, either. Such society-changing events like the Great Depression and World War II transformed the Americans who lived in that era into "the Greatest Generation," many believe. And it was a generation that didn't get its feelings hurt, its psyche damaged or its "safe space" violated. And it was a generation that a) didn't kill itself; and b) didn't need drugging to deal with everyday life.

How things have changed. Today, more than 5 percent of U.S. adults will fill a prescription for benzodiazepine every year, for all sorts of conditions including anxiety, (supposed) mood disorders and an inability to sleep well.

As NBC News noted further:

They're known to be highly addictive and, in 2013, nearly a third of the 23,000 people who died from prescription drug overdoses were taking them.

Bachhuber's team looked at large health surveys to find trends in their use and abuse.

This ought to be criminal

"The rate of overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines increased more than four-fold from 0.58 per 100,000 adults to 3.07 per 100 000 adults," the researchers wrote. "However, this rate appeared to plateau after 2010."

"Between 1996 and 2013, the number of adults filling a benzodiazepine prescription increased 67 percent, from 8.1 million to 13.5 million," the team continued.

Researchers discovered a similarly large increase in the number of pills that adults were being prescribed, though to the research team it wasn't clear why overdoses went up so much (it is to us– click here.)

"It could be people are taking the drugs for longer times, raising the odds that they'll eventually overdose," NBC News reported. "Or it could be the pills are getting to people who don't have prescriptions, the researchers wrote."

These mind- and mood-altering drugs are not safe, as has repeatedly been demonstrated at PsychDrugShooters.com. But for some reason – profits? – the medical industry and Big Pharma keep cranking them out, in higher doses and in greater numbers to more people.

That the mainstream medical community refuses to acknowledge the direct link between these increases and the increases in overdoses and deaths ought to be criminal.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/053146_psych_drugs_overdoses_mass_shootings.html#ixzz41eUZuy5q