A letter to the Editor in the Rutland Herald in Vermont
do not understand the lack of media or legislative outrage over the absurd level of psychotropic drugging of our prison population in Vermont. As reported in the July 1 Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus, nearly half of Vermont prisoners have been put on some form of psychiatric drug. Many of these prisoners have been put on powerful psychotropics with potentially serious, lifetime debilitating side effects. Why is this different from the reported mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay?
Per the psychiatrist quoted in the article, many are simply being drugged as a means of control. No other state in the country comes remotely close to Vermont's level of psychiatric drugging of prisoners.
When this is combined with the fact that Vermont is ranked No. 2 for per capita drugging of schoolchildren (Ritalin, etc.) we have a real pattern of psychiatric abuse, which is going unquestioned and unchecked. One can only assume that the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries are both profiting nicely.
It is both ironic and scary that we live in such an idyllic place, yet our population is being forcibly drugged at a level untouched by any other state in America. (Not that schoolchildren or prisoners have the legal ability to refuse the drugs.)
We are one of the few remaining states which have not passed legislation restricting the overuse and abuse of Ritalin and other psychotropic drugs on children. (And now add prisoners.) Both the psychiatric and pharmaceutical lobbies are active and strong in Vermont. Bills have been introduced in the Vermont Statehouse in recent years by a small number of both Democratic and Republican legislators to address this, but they have been killed in committee. It is time for our legislators to confront these abuses and bring them to an end.
Mark Elstner
Burlington
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