Violence and Psychiatric Drugs

Eighteen-year-old Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing himself. He was on anti-depressants called Luvox.

1. On May 25", default", 1997 18-year-old Jeremy Strohmeyer raped and murdered a 7-year-old African American girl in Las Vegas, Nevada. Strohmeyer had been diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Dexedrine, a Ritalin-like drug, immediately prior to the killing.

2. On October 1, 1997, in Pearl Mississippi, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed his mother, 50-year-old Mary Woodham, to death and then went to his high school where he shot nine people, killing two teenage girls and wounding seven others. Published reports say he was on Prozac.

3. Exactly two months later on Dec 1, 1997, Michael Carneal, a 14-year-old, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded, one of whom was paralyzed. Carneal was reportedly on Ritalin.

4. Then in February 1998, a young man in Huntsville, Alabama on Ritalin went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.

5. On March 24, 1998 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson shot 15 people killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others. According to one report, the boys were believed to be on Ritalin.

6. Two months later another grisly school massacre occurred. On May 21, 1998 15-year-old Kip Kinkel of Springfield, Oregon murdered his parents and proceeded to his high school where he went on a rampage killing two students and wounding 22 others. Kinkel had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.

7. On April 16, 1999, 15-year-old Shawn Cooper of Notus, Idaho took a 12-gauge shot gun to school and started firing, injuring one student and holding the school hostage for about 20 minutes. Terrified students ran for their lives, some barricading themselves in classrooms. Cooper had been taking Ritalin when he fired the shotgun's rounds.

8. Eighteen-year-old Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing himself. Harris was on one of the SSRI anti-depressants called Luvox.

9. A month later to the day, on May 20, 1999 T.J. Solomon, a 15-year-old high school student in Conyers, Georgia, on Ritalin(r), opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates. Thankfully, none were killed.

10. Fourteen-year-old Rod Mathews who had been prescribed Ritalin(r) since the third grade beat a classmate to death with a bat.

11. Nineteen-year-old James Wilson, who had been on psychiatric drugs for 5 years, took a 22 caliber revolver into an elementary school in Breenwood, South Carolina, killing two young girls and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

According to national news reports in January 1999, ten days after Ryan Ehlis, a college student in Bismark, North Dakota, began taking Adderall to control his attention deficit disorder and to help him with his college studies, he slipped into a psychotic fog and killed his infant daughter. He said God told him to do it. The courts found him innocent after testimony by a psychiatrist and by the manufacturer of the drug that the "psychotic state" was a very rare side effect of Adderall use.