Use of sleeping pills has gone up by 85% in the time between 2000 and 2004, which the New York Times says indicates another sign that “parents and doctors are increasingly turning to prescription medications to solve childhood health and behavioral problems.”
I honestly think it might just be that people are trying to fit so much into their time that they end up so buzzing at the end of the day that they need something to keep them down. If their parents can take a night cap, why can’t the kids take a Nytol? But then at the same time:
Dr. Andrew D. Krystal, director of the insomnia and sleep research program at Duke Medical Center, said that insomnia had long been undertreated, and that few doctors recognized how much insomnia could worsen other medical problems. Long-term medication can help relieve these problems, he said.
Dr. Krystal said he [also] consulted for and did research paid for by several drug companies.
NYTimes: Sleeping Pill Use by Youths Soars, Study Says
At the same time as kids are taking drugs to get away from it all, the Natural Resources Defense Council is suing the US Navy in Los Angeles courts to halt or cut down the use of active mid-frequency sonar during training exercising because of the damage the systems do to whales and other sonar-prone mammals. The group wants the Navy to avoid known calving and migration routes but does not request any change in behaviour for sonar use during critical periods.
The lawsuit blames the Navy for the January stranding and deaths of at least 37 whales on North Carolina’s Outer Banks after a mid-frequency sonar exercise. The Navy said it was unlikely the whales were harmed by sonar because the exercises were too far away.
The NRDC sued the federal government in a New York federal court in June, seeking documents about the mass stranding and other marine mammal deaths. The new lawsuit also cites a May 2003 case in which orcas behaved erratically and porpoises were found dead in northern Puget Sound following exercises by the USS Shoup, a Navy guided-missile destroyer.
Seattle PI & AP: LA lawsuit claims Navy sonar beaches whales and dolphins
Past Research: Tests on marine mammals to look for sonar link to injuries
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Can’t help wondering how many doctors might dare to prescribe … regular strenuous exercize, yoga, or somesuch similar regime before pushing drugs on nerve-addled patients of any age. That sort of thing, of course, puts the primary onus for health back on the patient him/herself and will doubtless never catch on in this modern world of endless instant gratification.
Funny really, people want a pill to change them, rather than to actually change themselves. Modifying ourselves is always the hardest thing to do, and the hardest thing to accept.