23 July 2007

Our Orwellian State

Mind Control 101 by JK Ellis: How to influence the thoughts & actions of others without them knowing or caringThe news is reporting that the number of prescriptions for antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs given to children under 16 has more than quadrupled in the last decade. As shocking as this statistic is, checking Hansard for the actual answer given to the Liberal Democrat shadow children's secretary, David Laws, reveals that it masks an even more shocking one.

The question asked was: "To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his latest estimate is of the number of school age pupils who have been prescribed drugs for (a) depression, (b) behaviour control and (c) mental health problems in each year from 1996-97 to 2006-07; and if he will make a statement." The headline summary is that there were more than 631,000 such prescriptions recorded in the last financial year compared to 146,000 in 1996-97 — an increase of more than 4.3 times the figure ten years ago. However, a breakdown of these prescriptions reveals that the increase in use of behaviour control drugs has been almost ten-fold among under-16s and almost twenty-fold among 16-18 year olds in full-time education:

Increase in use of mind-control drugs in the last ten years
 Under 16s16-18s in
full time
education
Antidepressant drugs1.41.1
Behaviour control drugs †9.419.6
Drugs used in psychoses and related disorders3.41.2
All mind-control drugs  4.31.4
† Central Nervous System stimulants and drugs used for
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

We've got Big Brother, NewSpeak, attempts to lock away the innocent and now mass use of mind control drugs ... and poor George Orwell thought he was writing a warning about, not a manifesto for a future government.

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