ABLECHILD: Florida’s “No Psych Drugs for Kids” Policy Collides With Billion‑Dollar School Mental Health Machine
Republished with permission from AbleChild.
The State of Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, announced last week a major change in Florida mental health policy in the form of making a state-wide recommendation “against the use of psychotropic drugs in children, 5-17, for treatment of mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, or attention-deficit related disorders.”
In other words, State Surgeon General Ladapo clearly believes that too many of the state’s children are being drugged and is recommending that mind-altering psychiatric drugs not be prescribed to children, while at the same time spending enormous amounts of state and federal funds on mental health in Florida schools. How is it possible to reduce the drugging of the state’s school-age children, while at the same time allowing mental health to intervene in those same schools?
And beyond just suggesting saying no to drugs, as part of this new mental health recommendation, the Surgeon General is further suggesting that other strategies be utilized before a rush to mind-altering drugs. For example, Ladapo recommends a “comprehensive evaluation,” “full physical exam,” “psychotherapy” and “evidence-based behavior management.” It isn’t clear how much these therapies will cost the state compared to simply writing a prescription, but hundreds of millions already are utilized for mental health services in the state.
For example, the Mental Health Assistance Allocation (MHAA) has $180 million allocated directly to school districts, funding school psychologists, social workers and mental health awareness training. There also is nearly $42 million appropriated to Community Action Treatment (CAT) Teams that reportedly provide intensive, community-based psychiatric, clinical and mentoring services to youth in the state. And of course, the above funds don’t include the billions provided by the federal Medicaid mental health budget to the state.
Surgeon General Ladapo is clearly aware of the problems surrounding the drugging of the state’s school-age children reporting that, according to a national health survey, nearly 15% of children aged 5-17 years received mental health treatment in the past 12 months, 8% were taking a medication as “treatment” and nearly 12% received therapy/counseling as mental health treatment.
The prevalence of ADHD is approximately 1 in 9 children in the United States (roughly 11%) and, according to the CDC, Florida currently has nearly 250,000 children being medicated for ADHD. It’s important to understand that ADHD is a behavioral diagnosis, not a neurological deficit and, therefore, the mind-altering drugs prescribe are not “treating” a neurological or biological problem.