Posted by Buckeye Fan on July 8, 2004, at 8:52:45
In reply to Re: Thorazine » 1980Monroe, posted by SandyWeb on July 8, 2004, at 7:16:26
Thorazine
"People's voices came through filtered, strange. They could not penetrate my Thorazine fog; and I could not escape my drug prison." - Janet Gotkin, testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on the Abuse and Misuse of Controlled Drugs in Institutions (1977)
"It's very hard to describe the effects of this drug and others like it. That's why we use strange words like "zombie". But in my case the experience became sheer torture." - Wade Hudson, testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on the Abuse and Misuse of Controlled Drugs in Institutions (1977)
"Frequent Effects: sedation, drowsiness, lethargy, difficult thinking, poor concentration, nightmares, emotional dullness, depression, despair . . ." - Dr. Calagari's Psychiatric Drugs (1987)
In 1954 the neuroleptic drug, Thorazine, began flooding the state mental hospitals. The neuroleptics are synonymous with tranquilizers and antipsychotics. The neuroleptics are the drug most commonly given to schizophrenics. The psychiatrist would like us to believe that drugs such as Thorazine "cure" the patient by repairing or altering "bad" brain chemistry (whatever that means. . .).
But the truth is the drug involves a strong dulling of the mind and emotional functions, and that this is what acts to inhibit or "push the symptoms into the back ground". According to Jerry Avon, M.D.:
"My concern is that people are having their minds blunted in a way that probably does diminish their capacity to appreciate life". (Boston Globe, 1988)To fully understand the nature and effects of drugs such as Thorazine, it is useful to go back and see what the early research psychiatrists themselves had to say about the drug. The two pioneers of Thorazine, Delay and Deniker, said about small doses of the drug in 1952:
"Sitting or lying, the patient is motionless in his bed, often pale and with eyelids lowered. He remains silent most of the time. If he is questioned, he answers slowly and deliberately in a monotonous and indifferent voice; he expresses himself in a few words and becomes silent".In 1954, Canada's Heinz Lehmann described the "emotional indifference" and specifically called it the "aim" of the treatment. Like Deniker and Delay, he found "the patients under treatment display a lack of spontaneous interest in the environment. . .". Contrary to today's psychiatric PR, the early pioneers plainly stated there was no positive cure or reduction of the patient's delusional symptoms or hallucinatory phenomena. With stronger dosages, there is a marked dulling and blunting of the patient's overall awareness, motor control and "thereness".
A 1950 textbook candidly reported the "lobotomylike" impact of Thorazine, and in 1958, Noyes and Kolb summarized in Modern Clinical Psychiatry:
"If the patient responds well to the drug, he develops and attitude of indifference both to his surroundings and to his symptoms".
The common factor is that the drug strongly reduces awareness and interest with the result the patient doesn't lose their symptoms, they lose interest in them.
Thorazine has been called a "chemical lobotomy" because of the similar effects it creates.Briefly, a lobotomy destroys partially or completely all functioning of the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes are unique to human beings and are the seat of the higher functions such as love, concern for others, empathy, self-insight, creativity, initiative, autonomy, rationality, abstract reasoning, judgment, future planning, foresight, will-power, determination and concentration. Without the frontal lobes it is impossible to be "human" in the fullest sense of the word; they are required for a civilized, effective, mature life. Without this "human" aspect a person is incapable of living a rewarding, happy and responsible life.
While the neuroleptics are toxic to most brain functions, disrupting nearly all of them, they have an especially well-documented impact on the dopamine neurotransmitter system. As any psychiatric textbook explains, dopamine neurotransmitters provide the major nerve pathways from the deeper brain to the frontal lobes and limbic system - the very same area attacked by surgical lobotomy. The disruption in the functioning of the frontal lobes results in the same effect - a greatly reduced person with dementia and reduction of awareness of self and the environment. They become "vegetables" - a body with very little mind or personality left.
While American psychiatrists continue to deny the obvious reality of chemical lobotomy, many European psychiatrists often acknowledge it openly, even in public and to the press. They can argue and play word games all they like - Thorazine is an extremely dangerous drug which does chemically what a lobotomy does surgically.
"The blunting of conscious motivation, and the inability to solve problems under the influence of chlorpromazine (Thorazine) resembles nothing so much as the effects of frontal lobotomy. . . Research has suggested that lobotomies and chemicals like chlorpromazine may cause their effects in the same way, by disrupting the activity of the neurochemical, dopamine. At any rate, a psychiatrist would be hard put to distinguish a lobotomized patient from one treated with chlorpromazine." - Peter Sterling, neuroanatomist, article Psychiatry's Drug Addiction, New Republic magazine (March 3, 1979)
Like surgical lobotomy, chemical lobotomy has no specific beneficial effect on any human problem or human being. It puts a chemical clamp on the higher brain of anyone. Therefore, the drugs can be used to subdue anyone.
poster:Buckeye Fan
thread:363442
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040704/msgs/363982.html