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Is this an American only issue? I was under the impression that marijuana is very popular everywhere.



No, it's merely popular to attack the US.

Iceland - widely considered one of the great societies on earth - uses anti-depressants as much as the US.

Here's next in line on the list of anti-depressant usage (in order of use):

Australia (10% lower usage than the US), Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, UK, Finland, Belgium (30% lower usage than the US)

Most of the countries with the highest standards of living on earth, have the highest rates of anti-depressant use. The sole exception to this are Japan and South Korea, which have particularly low rates of use due to a cultural aversion (even though Japan has a notoriously high suicide rate).

Poor and middle-tier countries can't afford routine anti-depressant use. Income levels map very nicely to anti-depressant usage. US, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Sweden are 6 of the 8 or so highest median income nations (Norway doesn't track as well, it's down the ranking), and they're the top six anti-depressant users.


But actual prescribing of anti-depressants and painkillers is considerably higher in the US than elsewhere.




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