Over the past decade, the percentage of college students visiting school counseling centers who are "coping with serious mental illness" has more than doubled. What's happening here? Better legal psychiatric drugs? Worse illegal hallucinogenic drugs? Psht. We blame Wal-Mart.

Although experts tell the New York Times that this dramatic uptick in students with Real Serious Problems is due to improved meds that "have allowed students to attend college who otherwise might not have functioned in a campus setting," we have our doubts. If the meds are so effective then why would all the kids on them be right back in the counseling centers? And since when has there ever been a lack of fucked up kids in college? It doesn't add up. We put on our medically-accredited* "thinking caps" to investigate the real cause of this mental health epidemic.

Oh, found it: the outsourcing of college pharmacies to Wal-Mart.

The 10,000-square-foot space under development [at the University of Arkansas] replaces a university-run pharmacy that's set to close Dec. 20...In a release, the university said patients have the option of moving their prescriptions to the Walmart on Campus pharmacy or another store.

So in the midst of an explosion of Clinically Fucked Up college kids, we put their medication management in the hands of a hellish cauldron of masturbation, pantie-tracking, and cheap wine? It's exactly like throwing them right back in the dorms.

We expect better from Arkansas.**

*We're not.
**We don't.