Jeff Weise, the Red Lake Indian Reservation, a school shooting and alcoholism
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: Anything but alcoholism
“Family wonders if Prozac led to shootingâ€
So said the headline describing the “sleepless search for answers” by the family of Jeff Weise, the teen who killed nine at his school in Red Lake, Minnesota, and then himself. They are wondering about the drugs prescribed for Weise’s depression.
While we cannot rule out the possibility that Prozac can lead to erratic and dangerous behaviors, there is far more obvious cause. Most massacres have been fueled by alcohol and other drugs. The massacre of the Nepalese Royal Family in 2001, which set off several days of rioting in the Himalayan kingdom, was fueled by a cocaine and alcohol binge by Crown Prince Dipendra. The Columbine High School massacre, reportedly planned for a year by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, was probably masterminded by Harris, whose favorite drink at age 16 was whiskey in conjunction with prescribed Prozac. Benjamin Smith, who went on a shooting rampage over the July 4th weekend of 1999, had spent a year in drug counseling before the tragedy.
While there are no reports of Weise drinking, the odds that he had not already triggered alcoholism are remote. He was a Native American, a race that has little built-up resistance to alcoholism. His reservation is home to the Chippewa Tribe, home to over 5,000, all but 91 of whom are full-blooded Indians. Alcohol and other drug addiction is reported as “rampant.” An alcohol-fueled rampage in 1979 over tribal leadership succession resulted in several deaths and a number of buildings destroyed by fire.
Weise’s father committed suicide in 1997; I make the case in Drunks, Drugs & Debits that 80% of suicides are a result of alcoholism (particularly common in early sobriety, as the alcoholic struggles with recovery while remembering some of the awful deeds that occurred when drinking). His mother was reportedly an extremely abusive alcoholic, who has been comatose since a car crash in 1999. While children could become monsters with such family history hanging over their heads, it is far more likely when they have themselves triggered alcoholism. Recall too, the average age at which one takes his or her first drink in the U.S. is 13, and the typical alcoholic in recovery tells us the addiction was triggered during the first drinking episode. This is probably one or two years earlier where alcohol is readily available by so many grown-up addicts where the unemployment rate is 50%.
It is most amazing that the cause of 85% of domestic violence and, according to some, over 90% of criminal activity, is not viewed as the likely cause of this tragedy. Such is the stigma of alcoholism, that even when its likelihood stares journalists in the face, it is completely ignored. Instead, blame something else: the drug that, when used by itself and within prescribed limits, simply mitigates depression.