Guns, Drugs, and Big Pharma - Common Threads

Every time I’m around police of any sort and have a chance to ask a certain question, I do. 

I’ve asked this question of SWAT teams in Toronto, Canada and Sheriffs in small towns in the US of A.  And the answer is pretty consistent. Almost word for word, really.

The Question

First time this came up was at a small trade show I was working in a town in Southern Oregon.  The fellow in the booth next to me was a Sheriff. Doing some publicity. He came in one morning and told me that there had been a ‘gun’ incident the night before that he had to attend. 

I asked him, "How many gun incidents are drug or alcohol related?”  He looked at me kinda funny, like I was a few bricks shy of a load or something.  He replied, “All of them!” He expounded but that was basically it.

A more recent conversation with a SWAT cop when I was working at the Royal Winter Fair last November in Toronto.  There had been an incident - some sort of demonstration earlier in the day at the Fair and they were walking around keeping at eye on things. They were chatty so I asked the one guy the same question- his reply was almost exactly the same. He gave me the same ‘Are you an idiot?’ look and said, “All of them?” 

(As an aside: He went on to tell me that of the several gun incidents that they get each week, and all of the guns that they confiscate, not one has been previously owned by a legal gun owner.)

It is quite well known now, pretty much general knowledge, that some key side effects of anti-depressants are things like, depression, suicidal ideation, and violent outbursts. 

Robert F Kennedy Jr. is running for President of the United States - and I’m kinda hoping he wins.  Not too fond of other options.

Kennedy, in one of his talks pointed out that a proper investigation into the causes of school shootings and such, has never been done.  This is pretty scary.  The pharmaceutical industry makes mucho dineros from their drugs. If a study like this was done and discovered that a major contributor to these violent shootings in schools and otherwise was their drugs, the shit would hit the fan. 

Billions of Big Pharma’s dollars would just evaporate.

(Note: A very large percentage of of gun homicides are committed by inner city gangs and the like.
“Gun involvement—  in gang related homicides increased from 73% in 1980 to 92% in 2008 (figure 41)” https://bjs.ojp.gov/)

There is no monitoring system for the Pharmaceutical Industry.  Many think that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) actually regulate and monitor the drugs manufactured.  This is a fallacy.  They never do any of their own testing on the drugs produced by the drug companies. They read the summaries of the testing.  At best someone will review some of the research details.

A good book covering this aspect of the FDA is ‘Bitter Pills’ by Stephen Fried. 

So, what is the common thread here?  Of all this gun violence?  Does anyone really know. Lots of anecdotal information.  Lots of fingers pointing.  Lots of people really certain as to what the answer is.  But most of that ‘certainty’ is based on emotion. 

Not any actual research.   In fact as I pointed out earlier here, the Pharmaceutical companies are likely terrified of a proper investigation into causes of gun violence in relation to their drugs. 

There is no doubt at this point that gun crime, school shootings and such things are inevitably connected to drugs. 

Get rid of the guns and you will still have children on drugs for depression that cause worse depression and more severe symptoms such as suicidal ideation. 

One of the issues with the R&D on drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies is that they really don’t know how these drugs work.  They don’t have to show this for FDA approval. 

Here is an excerpt from ‘Bitter Pills’:

“He said the the FDA and the drug companies don’t know how most of the drugs we take actually work. For FDA approval, the companies simply need to prove that their products do work somewhat better than a placebo, a sugar pill  It is helpful to be able to offer an informed guess as to whey they work, but it isn’t required.  For example the Floxin package insert said the drug was ‘thought to exert a bacterial effect on susceptible micro-organisms by inhibiting DNA gyrase**’.

“Bitter Pills” by Stephen Fried Page 29

(**gyrase: a bacterial enzyme)

There is no doubt at this point that gun crime, school shootings and such things are inevitably connected to drugs. 

Big Pharma has a lot to answer for.