LA Times on ADD kids saying No

As children they were given Ritalin to help them concentrate. Now -- as adults -- they are choosing to say no to meds.

Many of the 'ADD generation' say no to meds

Newly minted grown-ups are carrying out a massive natural experiment by choosing to do without the drugs that profoundly affected their experience of childhood.

By Melissa Healy, LA Times Staff Writer
December 18, 2006

Excerpt:

It seems like only yesterday they were fidgeting in their seats, sprinting around their classrooms and daydreaming their way through addition and subtraction. Most, just like Barclay, struggled through elementary and middle school on Ritalin as the practice of medicating attention problems in children took off steeply in the United States: Between 1990 and 2005, production of the two stimulant compounds most used to treat ADD — methylphenidate and amphetamine — increased seventeenfold and thirtyfold, respectively.

Now many are choosing to do without the drugs that profoundly affected their experience of childhood and school and, in many cases, made it possible for them to learn alongside other kids in mainstream classrooms.

It is one of the first decisions of their adult lives. Mostly, it was parents who dictated whether and when they would start medications to sharpen their focus. But the decision to stay on or go off these drugs is one that these teens and young adults have made for themselves — with little research to guide them.

technorati tags:ADD, Ritalin, AttentionDeficitDisorder, ampnetamine, methylpenidate, college, students, collegestudents, psychiatry, mentalillness