Foster Children and Psychotropic Drug Prescriptions – Colorado

Colorado responds slowly to psychotropic drug use among foster kids, By Jennifer Brown and Christopher N. Osher, April 13, 2014, Denver Post: “Diego Conde was 12 when his mother died, devastated and bursting with rage at the rotten way life was treating him. The only living thing left that mattered to him was his tiny dog, Littlefoot. Then, three months later, Littlefoot died. Diego was sent to live with strangers — a string of foster families in Denver and Aurora. He got in fights at school, started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, and exploded in anger at his teachers and temporary parents. At 13, he overdosed on borrowed prescriptions because he ‘couldn’t take it anymore.’ And so the state medicated him heavily, with twice-daily doses of potent mood-altering psychotropic drugs he says he did not want to take. Diego spent most of his teenage years numbed by a combination of Risperdal and Prozac to tame his rage and drown his grief. Now 18, he has aged out of the foster-care system and is speaking up for the thousands of foster children in Colorado who are medicated with psychotropics because of mental and behavioral problems…”