TEEN SUICIDE PROGRAM NOT PROVEN

There Is Justifiable Concern About Drug Use By Our Young People.

Then what on earth is the Tempe School district thinking about by
implementing a psychiatric program in their schools that will eventually
lead to children being placed on pharmaceutical drugs?

A victim of the school massacre at Columbine in Colorado, Mark Taylor,
recounted at the Tempe Union High School Board meeting that TeenScreen and
similar programs end up experimenting on kids, who could end up being
placed on prescription drugs such as Ritalin, Prozac or Luvox.

Despite these strong warnings, Tempe city officials still want the Tempe
school district to go ahead.

TeenScreen was started 10 years ago, originally to combat high teenage
suicide rates. While there obviously should have been some verifiable
successes, their Web site lists only one referral.

Parents, take the time to investigate this situation. Your children belong
to you, and no one has the right to give them drugs. Children should not be
used as lab experiments.

Research has shown that approximately 10 percent to 12 percent of all
school-age boys in 1996 were taking Ritalin. In all probability that
percentage is much higher today.

Male children have seemingly been the target of so-called experts who
certify new disorders, possibly at the request of pharmaceutical companies.
Ritalin, Luvox and Prozac are all psychotropic drugs that are allied to
cocaine with similar side effects.

Certainly these drugs are addictive and have been classified as a Type 2
drugs by the FDA and the World Health Organization, yet they are being
administered to approximately 6 million of our children age 5 to 19 years
for a variety of alleged mental illnesses.

These anti-depressants have been linked to many of the other mass shootings
- - some by young people, some by adults.

During 1998, the following acts were committed by schoolkids:

March 24, Mitchell Johnson, a 13-year-old, and Andrew Golden, an 11-
year-old, opened fire on their classmates. Although no knowledge is
available of psychotropic drugs being used, their attorney responded when
asked about it, "I think that is confidential information, and I don't want
to reveal that."

May 28, Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old, killed his parents, then went on a
rampage at his school, killing two students and wounding 22 more. Kinkel
had been using prescribed drugs Ritalin and Prozac.

During 1999, the following acts were committed by schoolkids:

April 16, Shawn Cooper, a 15-year-old, opened fire with a shotgun.
Fortunately no one was hurt. Cooper was taking Ritalin, the most commonly
prescribed stimulant for bipolar disorder.

April 20, Eric Harris, an 18-year-old, killed a dozen students, plus a
teacher before taking his own life at Columbine. Prior to this he had been
under the influence Luvox, an anti-depressant prescribed for the treatment
of obsessive-compulsive disorders.

In 1995, Martin Bryant, a young adult, was in Tasmania, off southeast
Australia, and opened fire for an unknown reason, killing 35 people and
wounding more. What is interesting to note is that Bryant had just returned
from the USA where he had been under psychiatric care and had been
prescribed Prozac.

Ritalin, the most heavily prescribed drug, is manufactured in Switzerland.
The USA purchases 90 percent of all the Ritalin made. Are we saying that
American male children are more prone to disruptive behavior than any other
industrialized nation?