Illegally buying and using prescription medications to help them study, students prefer drugs-of-choice Adderall and Ritalin, which are typically used to treat people who suffer from attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Dr. Brian McDonough, medical editor for Philadelphia radio station KYW 1060, said this trend is growing.
The researchers looked for cases of intentional abuse or misuse of ADHD medications in youths 13 to 19 years old from 1998 through 2005.
They found that over the eight-year study period, the number of calls to poison control centers regarding ADHD medication use went up 76 percent, from 330 calls during the first year to 581 calls the last year.
A 2005 report by Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) documented the problem. “This report revealed that our nation is in the throes of a growing epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse involving opioids like OxyContin and Vicodin, depressants like Valium and Xanax, and stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall,” Joseph A. Califano, Jr. CASA Chairman and President, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007.
Promoting drugs for kids to make money is absolutely criminal