Spare us the moralising on prescription drugs. Many of us need them
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Version 0 of 1. My name is Fay and I love drugs. Prescription drugs, that is. So that’s all right. Except it isn’t. The news yesterday that half of all women and 43% of men in England are taking at least one prescribed medicine a week was greeted by a very predictable outpouring of puritan moralising. “HALF of women are taking prescription drugs EVERY week” one tabloid bellowed, while the BBC went with the old chestnut “a nation of pill poppers”. Mmm. Popping. Sounds fun doesn’t it? Well, hardly. The most commonly prescribed medicines were statins, analgesics and antidepressants. Not exactly party o’clock. How strange it is that taking prescription medicine for a range of serious conditions – including high cholesterol, intolerable pain and depression – is seen as a personal failure. Go online to read about the report, by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, and you’ll find the bottom half of the internet awash with infuriating smuggos who claim never to have taken a drug in their life, not even half an aspirin when their leg fell off. Well, whoop de do. Spare me your tedious self-righteousness, because if you ever have a serious illness or condition, physical or mental, l’d like to see you refuse drugs. Major surgery without any post-op painkillers or antibiotics? I don’t think so. I speak from experience. As Zoe Williams pointed out on Twitter, it’s only those with nothing wrong with them that find the idea of taking medicine for illness a “moral problem”. It’s a patently ridiculous and very British idea, and laughable in the face of our propensity to down a stiff gin or three in the face of adversity. I am one of the 50%. I have a prescription for tamoxifen, an oestrogen inhibitor prescribed to women, like me, who have had oestrogen positive breast cancer (and more recently, to those at very high risk of it, if they wish). The side-effects (insomnia, hot flushes, feeling like I’m a million years old every morning) mean I take it extremely inconsistently. But how glad I am to have the option. When my mother died of breast cancer, in 1985, she had no such choice. I take other prescription medications too, sometimes. The highlight of my year was probably when the pharmacist miscounted and gave me 10 zopiclone tablets instead of the miserly eight prescribed by my GP. I often have insomnia, and nothing beats the feeling of knowing that, if you really need to, you can take a small white pill, and with any luck, drift off into a dreamless sleep. I have lived in America, on and off. Here’s one thing Americans are excellent at: medication. They rattle when they walk. Their attitude is simple: if something ails you, take a pill. If you think there’s something that might ail you, take a pill just in case. It’s a modern approach, and one lacking in Britain. Better living through chemistry – after all, it’s progress. To not medicate would seem to most Americans as crazy as riding a donkey to get around when there was a perfectly good car parked outside. I am not an idiot. I know that many drugs – benzodiazepines in particular – are highly addictive. But I am an adult, and I am perfectly capable of using drugs sparingly, just as I am capable of not chugging down a bottle of vodka every morning, just because I can buy one at the supermarket. Others are not, of course, but infantilising the entire population won’t change that. Some types of prescription drugs are a short-term solution to more intractable problems, yes, but a short burst of relief is surely better than banging your head against a wall. And there are many, many types of medication that simply allow people to live their lives. Almost a third – 30% – of prescriptions are for cardiovascular disease, with more than 65 million prescriptions for tackling high blood pressure, heart failure or cholesterol levels. Of course, where possible, prevention is better than cure. Regular exercise and a good diet are truly excellent life choices. But the criticism that we are over-treating and over-diagnosing seems mired in snobbery. For example, 17% of the poorest women took antidepressants compared with 7% of the richest. And the obese are perpetually sneered at – this report won’t help. More than half of severely obese people reported taking at least one prescribed medicine, and a third took at least three. In an ideal world, no one would be depressed, overweight, or have high blood pressure. But we do not live in an ideal world. So medicate, if you have to, and for goodness sake, don’t feel guilty about it. |