The Future is Cloudy

Start "Em Young, Hooked Forever:

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/146551

The use of powerful antipsychotics with privately insured children, aged 2 through 5 in the US, doubled between 1999 and 2007, according to a study of data on more than one million children with private health insurance in the January, 2010, "Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry,"

The lead researcher on the study above, Columbia University psychiatry professor Mark Olfson, told Reuters that about 1.5% of all privately insured children between the ages of 2 and 5, or one in 70, received some type of psychiatric drug in 2007, be it an antipsychotic, a mood stabilizer, a stimulant or an antidepressant.

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If There Is Ever A Reason:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/20/hamas-burns-tramadol-painkillers-smuggled-gaza

Hamas officials in Gaza burned nearly 2 million painkiller tablets in a hospital incinerator today in a crackdown on a drug that has become an increasingly popular escape from the hardships of daily life.

"We're all living in a hard psychological situation and we used Tramadol to forget our daily worries and problems," Khalil, a 25-year-old student in Gaza City told the Associated Press. "I go to Tramadol so I can forget all that."

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Help Is On The Way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer.

Drugs To Kill By

Societal Ills Compounded:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/military_psychiatric_drugs_031710w/

At least one in six service members is on some form of psychiatric drug.

“It’s really a large-scale experiment. We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior,” said Dr. Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist.

A Military Times investigation of electronic records obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency shows DLA spent $1.1 billion on common psychiatric and pain medications from 2001 to 2009. It also shows that use of psychiatric medications has increased dramatically — about 76 percent overall, with some drug types more than doubling — since the start of the current wars.

Future Is Confused

Programmed Early:

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/634536.html

The rate of children aged 2 to 5 who are given antipsychotic medications has doubled in recent years, a new study has found.

... And of course, Class Enters The Picture:

Research published online in December in the journal Health Affairs by the same research team suggested children on Medicaid are even more likely than children with private insurance to be prescribed antipsychotics.

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Listen To The Lucky Man;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/6939379/Japanese-man-who-survived-two-atomic-bombs-dies.html

An outspoken critic of nuclear weapons, he told his interviewers, "The reason that I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings.

"I cannot understand why the world cannot understand the agony of the nuclear bombs," he added. "How can they keep developing these weapons?" In the film, which was screened at the United Nations, Yamaguchi recounts how he was stepping down from a tram around two miles from the hypocentre of the bomb that detonated above Hiroshima. He was temporarily blinded, lost the hearing in one ear and was badly burned on much of his upper body.

Upon his return to his engineering company in Nagasaki, Yamaguchi was recounting his experiences to his supervisor when the second bomb was dropped.