The Daily Mail
By Rowenna Davis
May 12, 2010
Leon Perry is in trouble for insulting his teacher. Fidgeting on a chair in the assistant head’s office of Queen’s Park Community School in North London, the 13-year-old admits he’d skipped his medication.
‘I can get a bit hyperactive when I come off,’ he says. ‘I’ll be honest, I can be violent. When I’m on my tablet, I think before I act; when I’m off, I think after. If teachers get on my nerves, I’ll say what I want. When I’m on my tablet, I can’t be bothered.’
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 figures do not include private prescriptions, and may include some sufferers of narcolepsy as well as adult ADHD sufferers, but these are only a tiny minority.
With such a huge increase in figures, a growing number of academics are raising concerns that some teachers are either recommending these drugs as an easy alternative to dealing with bad behaviour, or simply turning a blind eye to those on medication when they should be investigating the root cause of their problems. In the worst cases, schools have been known to put significant pressure on students or their parents to seek the medication.
Take Leon. He insists he didn’t want to start taking Ritalin. His mum didn’t want him to, either. It was his junior school that gave him an ultimatum: go on the drug or leave the school. Seven years later, he relies on Concerta Exel - a slow-release form of Ritalin - to control his moods.
‘I know it helps me in some ways, but I hate taking it,’ he says, ‘There are days when I deliberately avoid it. You just don’t feel yourself, you feel so drained out. It makes you feel disgusted and down. Like you’ve got no soul or something. My mum doesn’t want me to take it, but what can she do? She wants me to get an education.’
The drugs most frequently prescribed for ADHD patients are atomoxetine, dexamfetamine and methylphenidate 3 - the last most commonly known by the brand name Ritalin.
Read entire article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1277674/Ritalin-used-control-unruly-pupils.html
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