_______________PROZAC IS FOR WIMPS BY CAMILLE PAGLIA (11/25/97)

Camille Paglia's "Prozac is for wimps" was highly offensive. She suggests Prozac is addictive. As someone who has taken Paxil for three years, I can attest that the drug simply corrects chemical imbalances in your brain and helps you get back to your pre-depressed frame of mind. Sorry, kids, stick to alcohol, pot, cocaine, etc. for your highs. Her assertion that Prozac "flattens mood, robs creativity and turns you into a bourgeois clone of everyone else" is, sadly, not backed up with any research. I'd say Prozac helps creativity; it got me back to the writing my depression had stopped. And I remain a cranky cynic living in Manhattan, where things get on my nerves. I thought the myth of Prozac's smiley-faced clones had been dispelled in responsible media many years ago. Hopefully, Paglia's blather did not mislead too many people considering anti-depressants. -- Allan Wood I have to respond to Camille Paglia's inane blatherings regarding Prozac, which has helped many people in deep, clinical depressions. Unlike liquor, her Dionysion darling, I don't know of anti-depressants leaving anyone homeless or dead from a traffic accident. Nothing like some shots of vodka to liven up those afternoon staff meetings and parent/teacher conferences. All this anti-Prozac talk in the media reminds me of people who attacked the so-called whiny Generation X for Kurt Cobain's suicide. The fucking kid had suicidal depression running through his family and obviously could have been helped more from a qualified clinician than the Dr. Laura-like abusives of our precocious Camille. -- Michael Orme Camille Paglia writes: "it makes no sense at all to push synthetic Prozac while banning organic marijuana." Depression is a disease of the brain. Most people who have depression do not know that they have it and the No. 1 cause of suicide is untreated depression. Anti-depressants have no effect on people who do not have depression. These drugs take several weeks to produce a response. Marijuana, on the other hand, makes most people "high" immediately. Since food also has an effect on mood, I guess it makes no sense to "push sugar or coffee while banning organic heroin." Similarly, are manic-depressives who take lithium "wimps"? There is plenty of room for making distinctions among brain altering substances. -- Michael Boross SALON | DEC. 5, 1997

R E C E N T L Y+| COYOTE DREAMS BY CYNTHIA ROMANOV

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