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'...Hundreds of animal studies and human clinical trials leave no doubt about how [Ritalin] works.
First, the drugs suppress all spontaneous behavior. In healthy chimpanzees and other animals, this can be measured with precision as a reduction in all spontaneous or self-generated activities. In animals and in humans, this is manifested in a reduction in the following behaviors: (1) exploration and curiosity; (2) socializing, and (3) playing.

Second, the drugs increase obsessive-compulsive behaviors, including very limited, overly focused activities.
Table II provides a list of adverse stimulant effects which are commonly mistaken as improvement by clinicians, teachers, and parents.


...Since the early 1990s, North America has turned to psychoactive drugs in unprecedented numbers for the control of children. In November 1999, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warned about a record six-fold increase in Ritalin production between 1990 and 1995. In 1995, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a agency of the World Health Organization, deplored that “10 to 12 percent of all boys between the ages 6 and 14 in the United States have been diagnosed as having ADD and are being treated with methylphenidate [Ritalin].” In March 1997, the board declared, "The therapeutic use of methylphenidate is now under scrutiny by the American medical community; the INCB welcomes this." The United States uses approximately 90% of the world's Ritalin.



...Table I summarizes many of the most salient adverse effects of all the commonly used stimulant drugs. It is important to note that the Drug Enforcement Administration, and all other drug enforcement agencies worldwide, classify methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine (Dexedrine and Adderall) in the same Schedule II category as methamphetamine, cocaine, and the most potent opiates and barbiturates. Schedule II includes only those drugs with the very highest potential for addiction and abuse.

Animals and humans cross-addict to methylphenidate, amphetamine and cocaine. These drugs affect the same three neurotransmitter systems and the same parts of the brain. It should have been no surprise when Nadine Lambert presented data at the Consensus Development Conference (attached) indicating that prescribed stimulant use in childhood predisposes the individual to cocaine abuse in young adulthood.

Furthermore, their addiction and abuse potential is based on the capacity of these drugs to drastically and permanently change brain chemistry. Studies of amphetamine show that short-term clinical doses produce brain cell death. Similar studies of methylphenidate show long-lasting and sometimes permanent changes in the biochemistry of the brain.


...Children become diagnosed with ADHD when they are in conflict with the expectations or demands of parents and/or teachers. The ADHD diagnosis is simply a list of the behaviors that most commonly cause conflict or disturbance in classrooms, especially those that require a high degree of conformity.

By diagnosing the child with ADHD, blame for the conflict is placed on the child. Instead of examining the context of the child's life—why the child is restless or disobedient in the classroom or home—the problem is attributed to the child's faulty brain. Both the classroom and the family are exempt from criticism or from the need to improve, and instead the child is made the source of the problem.

The medicating of the child then becomes a coercive response to conflict in which the weakest member of the conflict, the child, is drugged into a more compliant or submissive state. The production of drug-induced obsessive-compulsive disorder in the child especially fits the needs for compliance in regard to otherwise boring or distressing schoolwork.


...It is important for the Education Committee to understand that the ADD/ADHD diagnosis was developed specifically for the purpose of justifying the use of drugs to subdue the behaviors of children in the classroom. The content of the diagnosis in the 1994 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) of the American Psychiatric Association shows that it is specifically aimed at suppressing unwanted behaviors in the classroom.
The diagnosis is divided into three types: hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention.

Under hyperactivity, the first two (and most powerful) criteria are "often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat" and "often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected." Clearly, these two "symptoms" are nothing more nor less than the behaviors most likely to cause disruptions in a large, structured classroom.

Under impulsivity, the first criteria is "often blurts out answers before questions have been completed" and under inattention, the first criteria is "often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities." Once again, the diagnosis itself, formulated over several decades, leaves no question concerning its purpose: to redefine disruptive classroom behavior into a disease. The ultimate aim is to justify the use of medication to suppress or control the behaviors.

Advocates of ADHD and stimulant drugs have claimed that ADHD is associated with changes in the brain. In fact, both the NIH Consensus Development Conference (1998) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (2000) report on ADHD have confirmed that there is no known biological basis for ADHD. Any brain abnormalities in these children are almost certainly caused by prior exposure to psychiatric medication.'

Peter R. Breggin M.D. Testimony September 29, 2000
Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Committee on Education and the Workforce
U.S. House of Representatives

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Just to let you all know, the above information is hotly disputed. However, I will say the following: The cause of ADD and ADHD is not currently known or understood. How Ritalin treats ADHD is also not understood. ADD and ADHD are overdiagnosed, and there are hundreds of children on Ritalin that shouldn't be.
I have heard off-hand comments like "have you ever thought about Ritalin for your children?" from people that clearly should be shot in the face. Finally, a lot of children with "Hyperactivity Disorder" get drugged with Ritalin because their parents don't want to deal with them.

Remember, I'm just some guy. I'm not a doctor. But why would you want to drug your children into complacence when the causes of their "disease" are not clearly understood and not clearly different from normal behavior? These kids are in a part of their life when they WILL be rambunctious.

I'm talking about borderline cases. and, on top of that, there's no need to go 1984 and Brave New World on every child that doesn't conform.

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Doctors... Just guesswork in a white coat anyways

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