As more and more prescriptions are being written for medications to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), more and more children are abusing these drugs.
That's the conclusion of new research in the September issue of Pediatrics that found the rate of ADHD medication abuse was up 76 percent from 1998 to 2005, and at the same time, the rates of prescriptions for these medications rose about 80 percent.
"We looked at all the poison control centers across the nation and found a significant increase in the number of calls for ADHD medication abuse that parallels the amount of prescriptions being written," said Dr. Jennifer Setlik, an emergency physician at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio and a study author.
What's more, Setlik said, is that this study is "not an estimate of the total problem" because it looks only at data from poison control centers, but it gives doctors and parents a snapshot of the trend toward rising abuse of these medications with increasing availability.
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The science of delivering psychiatric medications is complex and reporting on such issues needs to show extra care in checking facts and critically analyzing information. Although the article has a catchy title, it is extremely misleading. The author associates the most highly researched and most carefully examined class of medications with an inappropriate street connotation. Misattributions of cause and effect permeate the article. In paragraph two the author suggests that medication abuse was caused by the increase in prescriptions. However, physicians are not necessarily at fault; it is unlikely that they prescribed dosings that were anywhere near toxic. Almost certainly there are too many parents who are not appropriately supervising the dosing of prescription medications. Two paragraphs later the author states that next some marijuana prescription medications of the most common drugs a teenager’s use to get high. She fails to note what type of medications they are. It is unlikely that prescribed stimulants are being used to get high; research studies have determined that high doses of these medications make people uncomfortable. Most reports of abuse of stimulants would be better characterized as misuse rather than abuse: example is is to take a stimulant so that one can pull and all night are studying or stay up all night at a party. And towards the end of the article, the author quotes Tom Hedrick. Tom is correct that many prescription drugs are dangerous and addictive. However it is misleading to lump Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta in that statement.
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