Legal drugs are just as good as prescribed medication

Modern psychiatrists have only one idea - medication.

These drugs are all made by big pharmaceutical companies and are highly profitable but whether or not they benefit the mentally ill is quite another question.

There is no cure for ailments such as the condition misleadingly known as schizophrenia, and there never will be.

You don't understand the plot of EastEnders by adjusting the colour and contrast of the TV but this is really all drugs do, apart from make a lot of money for big pharmaceuticals.

Drugs such as cigarettes, booze and spliffs that the mentally ill like to take are deemed bad and repeated use as "substance abuse."

But taking antipsychotics such as Amisulpride for the rest of your life is deemed a great idea.

That's because big pharmaceuticals hate the drugs they don't control.

Take insomnia, which you can remedy with one strong drink or take Zopiclone. What is Zopiclone? Who knows?

Or take depression. If you've got no job and you're poor then don't go out and be an activist against the system, just take some anti-depressants and watch TV instead.

There's huge money in anti-depressants, accounting for massive profits for pharmaceutical companies in the US.

The current anti-smoking hysteria is encouraged by big pharmaceuticals who make the highly profitable nicotine patches and gums.

Many of the mad community smoke because, as we know better than most, nothing is so calming as a cigarette and nothing is better for MS pain than a spliff.

Geoff Dennis

London SW2