Tag Archives: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

The Daily Mail: What does it say about our school system when teachers try to control unruly pupils with drugs?

Leon has been taking Ritalin – known as the ‘chemical cosh’ – since he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when he was six. He’s not alone. According to data obtained under Freedom of Information legislation, there has been a 65 per cent increase in spending on drugs to treat ADHD over the past four years. Such treatments now cost the taxpayer more than £31million a year.

The Portland Press Herald: Psychiatric Drugging of American Children is Cause for Alarm

The use of powerful drugs to treat younger and younger patients has gone far beyond disturbing. The age of children being medicated with prescription psychiatric drugs is getting younger and more widespread every year. According to a 2010 study of data on more than a million children reported by American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s journal, the use of powerful anti-psychotics with privately insured U.S. children, ages 2 through 5, doubled between 1999 and 2007.

The National Post: “Message to disease industry — That’s why they call it ‘acting like a child'”

Some time back I remarked on a new childhood “affliction” to be dealt with by the judicious use of drugs and psychiatrists: “Oppositional Defiant Disorder.” If you had four or more of the following as a child, you were ODD, and I guess I was, too…

Adderall, a drug commonly given to children diagnosed “ADHD”, associated with serious, life-threatening side effects

Adderall and Adderall XR, schedule II controlled substances composed of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine, have several Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved uses. However, both prescribed and recreational use of these drugs, especially among young people, is associated with serious, life-threatening side effects.

Pill popping: “The misconception is that prescription drugs aren’t dangerous because a doctor gives them out”

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA)’s survey the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2008 15.2 million Americans age 12 and older had taken a prescription pain reliever, tranquilizer, stimulant, or sedative for nonmedical purposes at least once in the year. Addiction to and the abuse of prescription drugs, also known as “pill popping,” has become a national trend.