On Saturday 20 September, about 700 people from throughout Europe and the United States marched today through the streets of Prague from Staromestske namesti to the Congress Centre, site of the World Psychiatric Congress (WPC). 

 Wearing T-Shirts that said STOP PSYCHIATRIC DRUGGING OF CHILDREN and PSYCHIATRISTS PUSH PILLS THAT KILL the marchers want the European Commission to pass stronger laws to protect children from psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs.  Nearly 50% of the 20 million children worldwide prescribed these drugs are in Europe.  Between 1995 and 2002, in at least five European countries—Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain—sales of behavioural drugs that include antidepressants, antipsychotics, and stimulants, more than doubled to €5.4 billion.   Since 1997 in the Czech Republic there has been a more than 400% increase in the number of prescriptions of Ritalin—a stimulant more potent than cocaine. Drug regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have issued warnings that these drugs can cause suppression of growth, psychosis, aggression, and ‘serious’ heart problems, including strokes and heart attacks. 

“Don’t Drug Our Kids, Don’t Cage our Kids, Just Leave Our Kids Alone,” referencing Czech psychiatrists’ use of caged beds that despite claims to have been banned in 2004 are still in widespread use.   Ms. Jan Eastgate, president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an international psychiatric watchdog that organized the march and an Exhibition, “PSYCHIATRY: HELP OR THREAT?” said, “Psychiatrists want drugs to replace the caged beds.  That’s merely replacing one abusive physical restraint with a chemical one.  The World Psychiatric Congress was chosen to protest this because it is rife with pharmaceutical-company funding and that usually leads to increases in people, especially children, being drugged.”   

Speaking outside the Exhibit at Stetkova 18, Praha 4, renowned Italian doctor Georgio Antonucci, who has helped hundreds of seriously disturbed patients to recover without psychiatric drugs said, “There is no reason to subject any child to a psychiatric drug that can cause serious physical and mental side effects, including driving them to suicide.  Unlike for medical conditions, in psychiatry there are no X-rays, brain scans or blood, urine or chemical imbalance test to diagnose a mental disorder.  Using a psychiatric drug on a child for conditions that don’t exist is child abuse.”   

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Hungarian professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz. It has helped obtain legislation protecting children from potentially lethal psychiatric drugs for 40 years.