In the 1960's and 1970's, Darrell Royal was a very successful football coach at the University of Texas.  He was often quoted for his pithy comments on football and on life.  He said, "Three things can happen when you pass and two of 'em are bad."

   Well, this statement can be adapted to prescription drugs. There are at least four things that can happen when you take a drug and all but one of them are bad. 

These are not good odds.

· The drug will not actually help;
· The drug will create harmful side effects;
· The drug will allow or cause the condition to worsen;
· The drug might actually help.  

WHAT IS A DRUG?   

   The Encarta Dictionary says that it is "A natural or artificial substance given to treat or prevent disease or to lessen pain."  For thousands of years, people have tried to treat their physical and mental feelings of pain or distress with substances like:

· Molasses and honey
· Hot soup
· Black tea or coffee
· Chants and spells
· Smoke from certain wood
· Castor oil
· Peppermint
· Poisonous plants
· Herbs
· Human and animal urine
· Snake poison
· Arsenic
· Mercury
· Heroin
· Cocaine
· And now with drugs like OxyContin for pain and the various psychoactive drugs like Zyprexa and Lexapro

   Many of these treatments had some effect.  Maybe it was the placebo effect or maybe it was that the conditions would have improved anyway.  But many of these treatments had dangerous side effects.  Morphine was used for pain in the Civil War but it created morphine addicts.  Heroin was later used for pain relief and it created addicts.  Cocaine was used for treating many things but it created addicts.  None of these three treatments actually cured anything but simply hid the symptoms.

TREATMENT TODAY

   While we may laugh at the use of some of the "drugs" listed above, we must remember that our forebears did not have many of the medical tools that today allow doctors to diagnose and discover the true cause of many physical and mental ailments-if they are actually used.     

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