Do psychiatric drugs play a role in school shootings?

Last Monday, I followed with great interest the existential musings of Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson on Fox News regarding the underlying causes of the significant increase of mass shooting incidents in recent years.

Considering the spike in such events since the 1960s and 1970s, when we very likely had just as many guns and fewer gun laws, the question naturally arises: What has changed in the interim?

A factor worth considering is the increased use of psychotropic drugs, namely the en masse application of antidepressants, ADHD treatments such as Adderall and Ritalin, benzodiazepines, diverse neuroleptics and the like to adolescents and other member of our society.

All of these drugs are known to potentially have serious side effects with problematic behavioral consequences.

It would be interesting to know whether Nikolas Cruz had any of these medications in his system? I don’t doubt that federal laws regarding privacy concerns will likely prevent anyone from finding out.

I would find an investigation into possible psychotropic drug-related causes (or at least a correlation) of the undeniable uptick in these tragic events to be a worthwhile undertaking.

A hurdle that would undoubtedly be encountered in pursuing this is the symbiotic relationship that exists between the manufacturers and the prescribers (the pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatrists) who have a vested financial interest in not having us stop popping our highly profitable pills.