Are We Overlooking the Obvious? Psychiatric Medications and the Rise in Violence

Social Issues Oct 23, 2026 • Richard Vernall

Adapted with permission from Richard Vernall’s October 2026 opinion piece. Vernall is the author of Running on Empty: Antidepressants and Youth Suicide – A New Zealand Review and has worked with young people in vocational pathways for over 30 years.

Acts of violence that once felt shocking now pass with little more than a brief headline. Mass shootings, youth aggression, and sudden outbursts of brutality have become distressingly common in many countries, including New Zealand.

Over the last twenty years, 16 of the 20 deadliest mass shootings worldwide have occurred.¹ In the United States, mass shootings roughly tripled between 2009 and 2013, rose a further 47% by 2020, and by 2023 the country was averaging two mass murders per day.^2–4 In 2024 more teachers and students died in American school shootings than there were school days.⁵

New Zealand has not escaped the broader pattern. As far back as 2003 the New Zealand Listener was already asking why society seemed to be growing more irritable and aggressive.⁶ Earlier still, the same magazine noted that New Zealanders were taking more antidepressants than ever and wondered whether ordinary sadness was being pathologised.⁷ By 2010 another Listener piece reported that New Zealand had the second-highest rates of anxiety in the world.⁸

The usual explanations—gun access, social media, violent media, political division—are frequently discussed. Far less attention is given to a change that has occurred in parallel: the sharp and sustained rise in the prescribing of psychiatric drugs.

A pharmaceutical era

American psychologist Linda Lagemann has pointed out that the climb in violence has tracked the climb in psychiatric prescribing. In 2024–25 roughly 250 million prescriptions for psychiatric medications were written in the United States alone.⁹

New Zealand shows the same trajectory. In the year to June 2013, 427,900 people were prescribed antidepressants—a 20% rise from 2008. By 2023 Pharmac recorded 2.3 million antidepressant prescriptions (up 33% from 2016) and more than 600,000 patients.¹⁰ The steepest increases have been among the young.

Between 2011 and 2021:¹¹

Antidepressant prescribing to children aged 5–14 rose 205% (from 6,225 to 19,015).
For 15–24-year-olds it rose 146% (from 88,401 to 218,312).
Antipsychotic prescribing rose roughly 140–143% in both age groups.

In 2023 nearly one in eight New Zealanders aged 12–25 was dispensed a psychotropic drug. Official data systems have struggled to confirm whether the right medicine is being given at the right time, or whether the prescribing is appropriate.¹²

Supporters say the numbers simply reflect better recognition of anxiety and depression. Critics see something more concerning: the large-scale medicalisation of distress, often without robust long-term evidence of safety. As Vernall asks: why do we endlessly debate screen time for children while barely discussing the prospect of turning them into lifelong pharmaceutical customers?

Warnings that are already on the label

For more than a decade every psychiatric medicine has carried package-insert warnings that include aggression, agitation, hostility, anxiety, delusional thinking, nightmares, severe emotional distress, and suicidal ideation. These are not obscure footnotes; they are recognised adverse effects.

While the precise contribution of these drugs to real-world violence is still debated, several studies have examined the association.

A 2010 U.S. analysis of adverse-event reports (Moore et al.) found 1,527 cases of violence disproportionately linked to 31 drugs, including 11 antidepressants. The reports included hundreds of homicides, assaults, and episodes of homicidal ideation. Three commonly prescribed SSRIs ranked among the highest for violence reports.¹³

A 2015 Swedish registry study (Lagerberg et al.) found that 1.3% of people aged 15–60 taking SSRIs were convicted of violent crimes (including murder, manslaughter, arson and kidnapping), compared with 0.6% of non-users. The rate was highest among the youngest users: 3.3% of 15–24-year-olds on SSRIs.¹⁴

More recent work has noted the tenfold rise in SSRI prescribing to very young American children since the mid-1990s and has catalogued more than 1,600 violent incidents (including hundreds of suicides and murders) associated with SSRI use.¹⁵

These findings sit alongside frank admissions from senior figures in the field. In 2011 Ronald Pies described the “chemical imbalance” idea as an urban legend never seriously advanced by informed psychiatrists.¹⁶ In 2013, Thomas Insel, then director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, said that after five decades “whatever we’ve been doing… isn’t working” and that the suicide, disability and mortality numbers were “abysmal.”¹⁷ In 2023 the Chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists described the mental health system as broken and making some patients sicker.

Violence closer to home

In New Zealand the rise is visible in youth offending statistics, school restraints and assaults, attacks on public transport, and violence against first responders and medical staff.^18–29 Between March 2025 and March 2026 St John reported a 10% increase in violent incidents against its staff. Nationwide, thousands of assaults on doctors and nurses were recorded in 2025. SPCA inspectors have faced death threats and now carry stab-proof vests. A six-week period in late 2026 saw 16 deaths in a cluster of violent incidents, many involving family violence.

The economic cost is enormous. Earlier estimates put the annual cost of domestic violence between $4.1 billion and $7 billion; sexual violence alone was estimated at $6.9 billion in 2020. Each homicide is costed at roughly $4 million. Firearm-related mortality and hospitalisation continue to impose hundreds of millions of dollars in lost life-years.^30–32

The conversation we keep avoiding

After high-profile mass shootings, public debate almost invariably centres on gun control. Medication histories are rarely examined in the same depth. In the cases of Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook) and Nicholas Cruz (Parkland), both young men had long psychiatric treatment histories and were reported to be taking antidepressants. When advocates sought fuller information about Lanza’s medication, Connecticut authorities refused on privacy grounds and warned that disclosure might cause people to stop their drugs.³³

Psychiatry’s standard answer when asked whether it has a cure is that it treats symptoms rather than cures the underlying condition. That stance makes transparency and genuine choice essential. People experiencing distress need clear information about both the benefits and the risks of psychiatric drugs, together with ready access to other forms of support.

There are other options

The range of evidence-based alternatives has expanded. Nutrition, long sidelined in conventional psychiatry, is one of them. In The Better Brain, Professors Julia Rucklidge (University of Canterbury) and Bonnie Kaplan present the case for broad-spectrum micronutrient supplements as a safer, cheaper, and effective option for many people with depression, anxiety and stress-related conditions.³⁵

Christchurch studies after the 2011 earthquake and the 2019 mosque shootings showed substantial reductions in PTSD rates among people given multinutrients—dropping from 65% to 19% after the earthquake and from 77% to 23% after the mosque attacks—with no adverse effects reported.^36–37

If such approaches were more readily available through primary care, the potential savings relative to the roughly $20 billion annual cost of mental illness to the New Zealand economy could be significant.³⁸

A political choice

Youth wellbeing has been largely sidelined in successive election cycles. UNICEF has repeatedly ranked New Zealand near the bottom of international comparisons for child and youth outcomes, including the highest youth suicide rate among the countries it assessed in its most recent report card, alongside high rates of bullying and overweight.^39–42 Despite large increases in psychotropic prescribing and substantial funding for mental-health services, the underlying indicators have not improved.

A 2026 Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission report found that 14.3% of New Zealanders were experiencing high psychological distress (up from 7.4% five years earlier), with the rate reaching 22.9% among 15–24-year-olds.⁴³

New Zealand has a history of challenging entrenched approaches when the evidence warrants it. Ahead of the 2026 election, voters have the opportunity to demand that political parties place the wellbeing of young people at the centre of policy—including a properly independent inquiry into the safety and effectiveness of psychotropic medications prescribed to those aged 0–25. Child and youth wellbeing is ultimately a political choice.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

References

1. CCHR, Prescription for Violence – Psychiatry’s Deadly Side Effects (2025).
2–5. U.S. Gun Violence Archive and related analyses; 2024 K-12 School Shooting Database.
6. The Angry Society, New Zealand Listener, 22 Feb 2003.
7. The Long Black Cloud, New Zealand Listener, 25 Aug 2001.
8. Panic Stations, New Zealand Listener, 19 Jun 2010.
9. CCHR (2025).
10. Pharmac data (2013–2023).
11. Pharmac OIA response, 27 May 2022.
12. Mental Health and Wellness Commission / MoH EPiC data.
13. Moore et al., “Prescription Drugs Associated with Acts of Violence towards Others” (2010).
14. Lagerberg et al., Swedish register study on SSRIs and violent crime (2015).
15. Tarrance (2024).
16. Ronald Pies (2011).
17. Thomas Insel (2013).
18–29. Various NZ Herald reports on youth offending, school violence, family violence clusters, assaults on responders and medical staff, SPCA threats (2024–2026).
30–32. Glenn Inquiry (2014), BERL sexual violence costing (2020), Treasury and PHCC firearm cost analyses.
33. CCHR (2025) on Sandy Hook medication information requests.
34. Grace Ryan, BBC The Inquiry (2019).
35. Rucklidge & Kaplan, The Better Brain (2021).
36–37. Christchurch multinutrient studies (post-2011 earthquake and post-2019 mosque shootings).
38. Office of the Auditor-General, Meeting the mental health needs of young New Zealanders.
39–42. UNICEF report cards and related commentary.
43. Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission report (2026).