Psychotropics

“ . . . popular assessment of tranquilizers came to focus on these negative images partly because these were key elements in other contemporary cultural currents: growing reaction against the ‘medicalization’ of society, growing distrust of big business and big science, and concern for the rights of women, consumers, and patients. Minor tranquilizers, with their hidden dangers, their widespread prescription (especially to women), and enormous sales figures, seemed to epitomize many painful defects in American society. . . . Much public discourse pushed aside the positive (or even neutral) assessments of tranquilizers between 1960 and 1980 simply because the dark side of prescription drugs was so much more useful rhetorically” (Speaker, 361-362; 371-372. 376). . . . two-thirds of prescriptions written for mood-modifying drugs were for female patients. For many feminists, as for consumer advocates, tranquilizer prescription was a prime example of economic and social exploitation” (373).