"More potent than cocaine..."
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New Research Indicts Ritalin.
Author/s: Kelly Patricia O'Meara
Issue: Oct 1, 2001
A recent study reveals that the drug being prescribed to tens of millions of school-age children for a scientifically unproved mental disorder is more potent than cocaine.
Thirty years ago the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that Ritalin was pharmacologically similar to cocaine in the pattern of abuse it fostered and cited it as a Schedule II drug -- the most addictive in medical use. The Department of Justice also cited Ritalin as a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) warned that "Ritalin substitutes for cocaine and d-amphetamine in a number of behavioral paradigms."
Despite decades of official warnings and supporting research confirming the similarities of methylphenidate (Ritalin) and cocaine, tens of millions of children in the United States have been prescribed this psychotropic drug for a widely accepted yet scientifically unproved mental condition: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Now a recently concluded study at the Brook-haven National Laboratory (BNL) not only confirms the similarities of cocaine and Ritalin, but finds that Ritalin is more potent than cocaine in its effect on the dopamine system, which many doctors believe is one of the areas of the brain most affected by drugs such as Ritalin and cocaine.
The outcome of this research was so surprising that team leader Nora Volkow, a psychiatrist who is associate laboratory director for life sciences at BNL, told the media that she and the team were "shocked as hell" at the results. "The data," explains Volkow, "clearly show that the notion that Ritalin is a weak stimulant is completely incorrect."
This revelation should be of no surprise to the medical and psychiatric communities, given the already documented warnings about methylphenidate by federal law-enforcement agencies and international organizations, but it is noteworthy on one level. Volkow's newly released research reinforces what critics long have known -- that the "medication" being prescribed for ADHD is not merely similar to cocaine but is in fact more potent. And the results raise further questions about the validity and repercussions of having an entire generation of children diagnosed with a "mental disorder" or "brain disease" which to date has no basis in physical science.
Volkow's findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience and reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, may act as a wake-up call to parents, educators and lawmakers who have yet to address the question of whether ADHD is a real physical, medical or neurological disease that can be scientifically confirmed or is even confirmable. Because the ADHD diagnosis is the No. 1 reason for drugging school-age children, and Volkow's research reconfirms that Ritalin isn't just kid stuff, parents may want to reevaluate their child's treatment. The numbers alone are a telling sign of where the push to medicate is going.
According to the DEA, the number of prescriptions written for Ritalin since 1991 has increased by a factor of five (2.2 million) and about 80 percent of the 11 million prescriptions written for Ritalin are to "treat" ADHD. This means that nearly 9 million children have been prescribed the cocainelike "medication."
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