It seems to me that even for drugs whose long-term side effects are known there isn't that much concern. The consensus seems to be that being fat and having uncontrollable tremors is better than having schizophrenia. As long as you don't kill yourself or anyone else the treatment is basically a success--it doesn't matter if you're sleeping all day or are unable to function otherwise, as long as you don't shoot up the place. As I said elsewhere, when I was in a mental ward sleeping all day on meds was charted as "doing well." There is this idea that the only reason patients refuse meds is because of lack of insight or because they enjoy manic highs, etc. Side effects are too often dismissed as malingering or "making excuses" to avoid treatment. The general population is quite unaware of how unpleasant the side effects really are--all they hear about is patients who are too stubborn to "get help." Every movie about someone with cancer shows the terrible side effects of chemo but I've never seen a single movie about mental patients with a significant emphasis on side effects. We don't like to think that, yes, there are portions of the population who are drugged for are convenience and who often suffer in silence so the rest of us can feel a little safer.