Meds, Dads and School Shooters

Critical issues being ignored

There is a profile of a typical school shooter that has emerged in the past quarter-century. The shooter is a male, from a broken home, and was taking or had taken a Schedule II medication.

First, the drugs. There are five schedules for drugs with Schedule I drugs possessing the highest potential for abuse and greatest potential for severe psychological and/or physical dependence. At the bottom of the scale is Schedule V drugs which represent the least potential for abuse.

A Schedule I drug has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” such as heroin and LSD. A Schedule II drug is a heavy-duty category of narcotics that have “high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence.” These include fetanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. These Schedule II drugs prescribed to the would-be shooters are most often prescribed to treat ADHD, anxiety, or depression, and often have very serious side-effects.

Why are children (ages 1-11) and adolescents (12-17) being prescribed powerful drugs that have dangerous side effects?

It's become commonplace to prescribe Schedule II narcotics for children and adolescents. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2016 more than 6 million children aged 17 or younger were diagnosed as having ADHD; 388,000 were just 2-5 years old. Of this group, 62% were prescribed a Schedule II narcotic, including 18% of the 2-5 year olds. 

Should any two-year old ever be given a Schedule II narcotic to treat behavior?

The first mass school shooting in the modern era was in Columbine, Colorado in April 1999. The Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both had the drug Luvox in their bloodstream, according to the autopsy. Harris had been prescribed Luvox, a serotonin selective reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), or an antidepressant drug.

According to the Mayo Clinic, “SSRIs treat depression by increasing levels of serotonin in the brain.” Mayo warns “Anyone taking an antidepressant should be watched closely for worsening depression or unusual behavior.” Commonly prescribed SSRIs to treat depression include Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Paxil, Pexeva, and Zoloft.

The FDA has approved the use of anti-depressants such as Prozac and Zoloft by children. Shockingly, “an estimated 10.8 million [SSRI] prescriptions were dispensed in 2002 for youths aged 1 to 17 years.” More than 1 in 6 prescriptions were written by pediatricians.

Here’s a warning to all parents: if your pediatrician is writing a prescription for a Schedule II narcotic for your one-year old child then immediately find a new pediatrician.

Amphetamines are prescribed to treat hyperactivity and attention deficit disorders. The go-to medication to treat a slew of behavioral issues such as ADHD in children was methylphenidate, most commonly marketed under the trade name Ritalin. Between 1991 and 1999 Ritalin prescriptions skyrocketed 175% from 4 million to 11 million. By 1999, there were 360 million daily doses of Ritalin. This is a staggering amount of narcotics pumped into adolescents on a daily basis. About 85% of the world’s Ritalin is consumed in the US.

In the late 1990s and 2000s, the FDA approved several new amphetamines for use by children. Between 1996-1999 amphetamines such as the newly-approved Adderall prescribed to treat ADHD increased more than 450% from 1.3 million to 6 million prescriptions.

Between 1997-2017, “there has been an upward trend in national estimates of parent-reported ADHD diagnoses. … It is not possible to tell whether this increase represents a change in the number of children who have ADHD or a change in the number of children who were diagnosed,” according to the CDC. The number of children aged 3-17 diagnosed as having ADHD nearly doubled in that 20-year period.

As ADHD diagnoses increase, Schedule II narcotics prescriptions have increased. It hasn’t gone without notice that the rise in school shootings has been concurrent with the introduction of new SSRIs including Adderall (1996), Concerta (2000), Dexedrine (2001), Vyvanse (2007), and Desoxyn (2010).

The parallels are deeply worrisome: more ADHD diagnoses, more drugs, more violence.

In 2004, the FDA warned “an increased risk for suicidality causally related to use of the SSRIs and related antidepressants” by children and adolescents led to increased suicidal tendencies. The data from 24 studies found “the rate of possible or definitive suicidality among youths who were assigned to receive antidepressants was 2.19 times greater” than those not taking an SSRI.

Robert M. Califf, M.D., Revolving Door: FDA Commissioner (2016-17); Big Pharma Executive (2017-2022); FDA Commissioner (2022-present)

One might wonder why the FDA hasn’t take a proactive stand to safeguard our children and, instead, have seemingly given a blank check to the pharmaceutical industry to market powerful drugs to kids. This may explain it. Since 1981, 10 of the 11 FDA commissioners left the agency to take high-paying jobs with pharmaceutical companies. The current FDA commissioner, Robert Califf, served as commissioner under Obama, took a job with Verily Life Sciences, and then returned to lead the FDA under Biden. Verily partnered with pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi in developing products requiring FDA approval. Califf epitomizes the proverbial revolving door and blatant conflict-of-interest.

Robert Califf was confirmed for his second stint as FDA Commissioner by a near-party line 50-46 vote in February 2022.

Aside from taking prescription narcotics, one point common to school shooters is they attend public schools rather than private or parochial schools or are homeschooled. Perhaps the absence of a reasonable value system in many public schools is a contributor.

Another irrefutable point is society’s daughters also live under the same troubling circumstances of broken homes, have access to guns, and play violent video games (often blamed for the violence), but schoolgirls are not mass shooters. What is the difference? An obvious factor is the absence of a father or responsible father-figure in broken homes and his very critical role in raising a well-adjusted and well-behaved son.

Unfortunately, the importance of a responsible male in the life of an adolescent boy runs counter to the narrative argued by some political constituencies that the presence of a dad is unimportant. This attitude is not a recent phenomenon. More than three decades ago, Vice President Dan Quayle was vilified by the political left and the media when he criticized the “Murphy Brown” television program for “mocking the importance of fathers.”

Data has overwhelmingly shown Quayle was correct. Children in fatherless homes are more likely to live in poverty, suffer drug and alcohol addiction, become victims of physical and emotional abuse, underperform in schools, are more likely to engage in criminal activity and become teenage parents.

If we truly want to end school violence then society must first stop unnecessarily medicating our children – especially our boys – with heavy-duty narcotics. Next, is having a father or father-figure active in their lives. These two steps alone may go a long way to reducing, if not eliminating, school shootings.

Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.

His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).