A Prescription for Violence?
Insight on the News, May 21, 2001 by Kelly Patricia O'Meara

The recent wave of school-shooting incidents has some concerned
parents demanding that the medical records of students taking
psychotropic drugs be made public.

In the last 10 shooting incidents at schools, a total of 105 students,
teachers and administrators were killed or wounded. Beginning in March
1998 with the shooting at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark.,
and ending with the March 22, 2001, shootings at Granite Hills High
School in El Cajon, Calif., six of the 12 juvenile shooters are
reported to have been on prescribed mind-altering drugs.

San Diego Deputy Public Defender William Trainor announced last week
that his client, 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, who is charged with the
shooting of five students and teachers at Granite Hills High School,
had been prescribed the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor. Whether
Trainor intends to use this medical information as part of his
client's defense is unclear, though he said that "the drugs [Hoffman]
was prescribed may help explain his actions." He adds that research
"indicates that the drugs that were prescribed are extremely powerful
antidepressants with the most dangerous side effects."

School Violence and Prescription Drugs: A Connection?

Total number of killed and wounded: 105