Truly a shame! We are perhaps the largest drug addled country in the world.

And all we do is push these medications on children, not knowing the long term effects.

I believe we don´t have to dredge very deeply to find prescription drug use at the center of many adolescent male rampages. This seems like the connection that few in medicine or law enforcement are reluctant to make...

confusing double negative - mea culpa. Meant to say that few are willing to acknowledge.

Additionally - I have a relative who´s son was on ADHD meds for many of his years - from jr high through high school. Mom once told me that because of this drug regime her son would not be accepted for military service. Wonder if this is still true...

I don´t know about this young man but I think many ADHD diagnoses are actually just someone with a personality that doesn´t conform well to our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. I wonder how many cases could be ´cured´ if they had a job requiring heavy physical labor.

#5 - That is correct. If the kid has been given a prescription for ADD/ADHD drugs, they will not be accepted into the military. A long conversation with our pediatrician confirmed this.

All but one of the mass shooters were on Prozac, many combined with Adderal...Look it up...it´s not gun control we need but prescription drug sanity

I know a 19-year-old right now who can´t get off his Adderall, etc. because he´s been on it since grade school. He´s trapped because of the side effects from withdrawal and no doctor seems willing to help or have an idea of how to safely withdraw from these drugs. I also have a nephew who was diagnosed ADHD but was "cured" when his mother left her abusive husband. And she had a terrible time getting him out of the system since the school was getting extra money for him. He is now a grown man and doing well with no need for medication. It´s criminal what we´re allowing to be done to children - doctors should be going to jail.

#6 hit the nail on the head. Kids should be running around all over the place, screaming at the top of their lungs, fighting & squabbling when required, as they grow up & find their place in their little world. They don´t need "helicopter" parents or school systems that are after the money to keep their counter productive world afloat. Kids might be better growing up with no schooling in the system at all.

Don´t blame doctors. People come in and demand medications for their kids. If the doctors don´t prescribe them, they sue.

Another case of misdiagnosis maybe for guinea pig purposes

That this is in the New York Times concerns me. It means that Dr. Bloomberg will take this medicine away from people who need it.

My heart breaks for this mother. I had lived in VA Beach and had three kids in various schools there- both public and private. In VA Beach the peer presssure and availability of friends scrips made it the "in" thing to do. the pressure on my second one to join the crowd and get a script continued into a NE college. her closest friend sounds just like he could have been Richard. she would get mad because I didnt support her getting drugs especially because she wanted to get into the military after college. my own experience as a teacher says that teachers love it if the kids are on drugs so they can focus and be quiet during the day. Of course I think lack of parenting is the real problem many times when they are little. As kids get older and see others benefitting from drug use then it is a peer pressure issue and the results are just now being documented. Very sad story.

Saw that notion in many elementary teachers in our district, too. Middle son was a bored stinker and they ´tested´ & ´monitored´ him to the point of the teacher demanding him be put on something. Our own pysch eval. said borderline gifted with poor communication abilities. School backed the teacher so we pulled him out to homeschool for a yr till he could go to Jr. High without drugs. I thought it was a federal crime to diagnose & prescribe if you were not a licensed doctor? Guess not in Ohio.

Perhaps if they allowed children, especially boys, recess and gym during school and their teachers would stop playing psychologist this problem would work itself out...

There are so many issues here but I think departments of education at universities are at the root of the problem. My friends who teach see diagnosing autism and ADHD as a major part of their job. One friend had to take classes in psychology and behavior disorders to get her elementary eduaction teaching degree. We were discussing this issue recently and she told me "we spend more time with these children than their parents do, so we know them better." Sadly, I think she´s right.

*Education I mean. Please pardon the typos in my above post... iPhone...

I attended a psychopharmacology seminar on Friday.

The speaker presented research which seemed to demonstrate that psychiatric meds are not prescribed correctly in many populations, particularly by those working in primary care settings.

Among other things, some of the research he presented supported a thesis that one reason that antidepressants aren´t prescribed in therapeutically adequate dosages in adolescents, and when they are, the risk of suicide is dramatically decreased.

A second point, is that people that are bipolar (inparticular, bipolar type II) are incorrectly prescribed antidepresants, which may precipitate mania and can lead to behavior which increases the risk of death.

I´d like to recommend anyone with a mental health issue get their neurotransmitters measured. There is a testing service which is available through some primary care providers and/or directly online, which you can learn more about at neuroscienceinc.com.

I am in no way affiliated with this company.

#11. Another thing. If a physician will NOT go along with freely writing the Rx´s for what patients want (even when it´s NOT good medicine) then oftentimes he is in big trouble with the other guys in his practice. The other MDs kept insisting they just "give people what they want." Just go with the flow so we won´t lose patient BUSINESS.

The connection between SSRIs and mass killers is now beyond dispute. Yet if you look these up on Web MD there is only mention of weight gain, depressed libido and the like. There seems to be a conspiracy to hide this from the public, so fire arms and the Second Amendment can be blamed.

Docs get commissions from big pharma for every Rx filled. That´s why you get a magic piece of paper instead of help solving the root cause of the problem. Follow the money.

If Doctors get commissions for writing prescriptions, then why am I not on any medication what so ever at age 63? I do not ask for medication and none is ever offered.

My neighbor began homeschooling because the TEACHER insisted her daughter be drugged for ADHD or she could not attend classes.

Forgive second post. #23, you may be very blessed in your choice of physician.

It´s called killing and/or making freaks of today´s children, (and a LOT of adults, too), in the glorious pursuit of the almighty dollar.

"They got pills for ills, and thrills, and even spills, but I think you´re just a little too late..." Jimi Hendrix, "Belly Button Window"

I guess I am now in the minority in this country, in that I can remember a time (my childhood) when there were no ADHD kids. No child disrupted class - well, if they did, they didn´t do it more than a couple of times - and children were allowed to be children. I will forever maintain that the best remedy for what is now called ADHD is a great deal of outdoor exercise, and a teacher with a wooden paddle and a wicked forehand. Backed up by a superintendent with a bigger paddle and better forehand swing. And parents with belts if they found out you got spanked at school. In high school the athletes were sent to the coaches for discipline, and you did NOT want that to happen. The only thing different between me and my well-drugged grandson is that I had a literal FEAR of transgressing the rules. The punishment was swift, sure and painful. And it worked. I deserved every spanking I got except for one, and I can understand completely why I didn´t get the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Medications are forced on seniors too. My sister-in-law takes at least 20 pills a day. I think her doctor is secretly putting her on the Liverpool Pathway without her knowledge.