An easy but not glamorous course of action to prevent this from happening on a large scale is flushing the notion that taking a pill for everythingeverytime is A-OK out of Western culture.
The average American is on ~1 prescribed pain killer and usually has access to several other over the counter opioids. People take incredibly potent whatevers against the mildest allergies to prevent having reddish eyes. A pill to take the edge off, a pill to calm down. Kids who are not firmly in the right area of every imaginable performance bell curve at age 7 get a whole palette of medicine against fictional anger issues, concentration issues, learning issues, anxiety issues.
I am glad that the topic of psychological side effects is gaining traction. Personally, I have always felt that taking any medicine is most likely going to be a trade-off against side effects we do not really understand yet. Keeping this in mind, one can make a much more sensible decision whether or not to take a pill. If we get this notion back into the head of people it would help a lot IMO.
The average American is on ~1 prescribed pain killer and usually has access to several other over the counter opioids. People take incredibly potent whatevers against the mildest allergies to prevent having reddish eyes. A pill to take the edge off, a pill to calm down. Kids who are not firmly in the right area of every imaginable performance bell curve at age 7 get a whole palette of medicine against fictional anger issues, concentration issues, learning issues, anxiety issues.
I am glad that the topic of psychological side effects is gaining traction. Personally, I have always felt that taking any medicine is most likely going to be a trade-off against side effects we do not really understand yet. Keeping this in mind, one can make a much more sensible decision whether or not to take a pill. If we get this notion back into the head of people it would help a lot IMO.