Say No to Drugs?
In the United States there is a dysfunctional war on drugs that is taking place. Parents tell there children to “Say no to drugs” all while their bathroom cabinets are packed so full of drugs that you can’t even open them. Schools claim to be drug free zones but yet it’s common place for teachers to pressure parents into medicating there “overactive” child. The average kid has seen thousands and thousands of hours worth the drug advertisements by the time they are 18 years old. Do we really expect them to “Say No?”
Good Ol’ Days…
Back in “the good ol’ days” it used to be illegal for pharmaceutical companies to advertise to the public. The reason is very simple, people are not qualified to know what medications they do or do not need. It’s as simple as that. Now that’s not to say you don’t know your body or that you don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe you do. But putting drugs in your body isn’t like painting by numbers. You can’t just say “Well I have that so I must need xyz drug.” It’s not that simple. Every drug has potentially dangerous side-effects. No matter how happy the people on the commercial frolicking through the woods are, it doesn’t make that drug any more safe. Medications get pulled off the shelf every year because we find out they are killing people. You’d be hard pressed to say that about a healthy diet and exercise.
What to do…
I’m not going to pretend that medications are never necessary. Medications save lives. But medications are widely overused by our society in spite of the fact that there are a ton of healthy treatments and lifestyle modifications available and often times the information is simply a click or two away. A while back I heard a good friend of mine, Dr. Adam Tanase, make a very simple statement about medications that has always stuck with me. He said, “If medications made people healthy, the healthiest people in the world would be taking the most medicine. But instead we see the sickest of our society taking the most medicine while the healthiest amongst us are taking none.” Wow…so simple but so true. The bottom line is there’s not a medication or medical procedure in the world that can make up for an unhealthy lifestyle. Diet and exercise only fail when you don’t do them.
Tags: Chiropractic, diet, drugs, exercise, health care, medications, say no to drugs
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[...]Dysfunctional War on Drugs « Dr. Jerry Kennedy – Belleville, Illinois[...]…
The main problem here, I believe, is that people rely too much on medicines that they even resort to self-medication without being aware of the dangers certain medical components bring about to the human body.
Exactly, Most people have been conditioned to rely on a pill when they don’t feel well. And we are so used to taking medications, we have become very disassociated with risks involved with putting ANY chemical in the body. Medications are no joke. They should never be carelessly taken no matter how accessible they are.