POLITICIANS ON DRUGS

The Colorado State Board of Education diluted a resolution that
originally assailed the use of psychiatric drugs down to meaningless
pablum Thursday before adopting it 6-to-1. But the board's action,
coupled with an impromptu and ill-starred legislative hearing Tuesday,
where self-styled "experts" from the Church of Scientology berated the
medications, still risks stigmatizing troubled children and
discouraging them from getting the help they need.

The fact that suicidal Columbine High School killer Eric Harris was
taking the drug Luvox has prompted hysterical charges that the drug
caused that massacre and similar killings elsewhere.

But the simple fact is that there are an estimated 6 million people
taking such drugs.

If you gave 6 million people a glass of water, it would be a safe bet
that some of them would commit violent acts within the year. But only
state Rep. Penn Pfiffner, who chaired Tuesday's farcical hearings at
the state Capitol, or state Board of Education member Patti Johnson
would go on to demand that water be banned from our schools.

In addition, the 6 million people using such drugs are far from a
random sample - they have been prescribed medication precisely because
they suffer from serious behaviorial disorders.

There is, in fact, ample medical evi dence that psychotropic drugs
such as Ritalin, Prozac and Paxil can reduce the incidence of such
problems.

But doctors also know the drugs are far less than 100 percent
effective.

In short, such drugs, under careful medical supervision, can reduce
violent or self-destructive behavior in some patients but cannot
eliminate such behavior completely. Pfiffner and Johnson might as well
spend their time trying to outlaw seat belts - which dramatically
reduce deaths and injuries suffered in traffic accidents but cannot
totally eliminate them.

There is indeed, as the watereddown Board of Education resolution
said, "much concern regarding the issue of diagnosis and medication
and their impact on student achievement."

But such legitimate concern is no reason to ban such drugs or to
stigmatize the people who take them. Rather, it underscores the need
for such drugs to be used under close medical supervision to ensure
that patients don't take too much - or too little - medications and
are receiving treatment appropriate to their needs.

Given the unpredictability of the human mind and body, youths with
behavior disorders need to be watched over by the closest possible
partnership of patients, parents and supervising physicians. There is
no room in that tight teacher-doctor-patient-parent circle for
grandstanding politicians.