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Parents throughout the country are being pressured and compelled by schools to give psychiatric drugs to their children. Teachers, school psychologists, and administrators commonly make dire threats about their inability to teach children without medicating them. They sometimes suggest that only medication can stave off a bleak future of delinquency and occupational failure. They even call child protective services to investigate parents for child neglect and they sometimes testify against parents in court. Often the schools recommend particular physicians who favor the use of stimulant drugs to control behavior. These stimulant drugs include methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, and Metadate) or forms of amphetamine (Dexedrine and Adderall). My purpose today is to provide to this class the scientific basis for rejecting the use of stimulants for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or for the control of behavior in the classroom or home. I. Escalating Rates of Stimulant Prescription Stimulant drugs, including methylphenidate and amphetamine, were first approved for the control of behavior in children during the mid-1950s. Since then, there have been periodic attempts to promote their usage, and periodic public reactions against the practice. In fact, the first Congressional hearings critical of stimulant medication were held in the early 1970s when an estimated 100,000-200,000 children were receiving these drugs. Since the early 1990s, North America has turned to psychoactive drugs in unprecedented numbers for the control of children. In November 1999, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warned about a record six-fold increase in Ritalin production between 1990 and 1995. In 1995, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a agency of the World Health Organization, deplored that â€Å"10 to 12 percent of all boys between the ages 6 and 14 in the United States have been diagnosed as having ADD and are being treated with methylphenidate [Ritalin].† In March 1997, the board declared, "The therapeutic use of methylphenidate is now under scrutiny by the American medical community; the INCB welcomes this." The United States uses approximately 90% of the world's Ritalin. The number of children on these drugs has continued to escalate. A recent study in Virginia indicated that up to 20% of white... ...the treatment of children diagnosed with ADHD: Part I: Acute risks and psychological effects. Ethical Human Sciences and Services, 1 13-33. Breggin, P. (1999c). Psychostimulants in the treatment of children diagnosed with ADHD: Risks and mechanism of action. International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine, 12, 3-35. By special arrangement, this report was originally published in two parts by Springer Publishing Company in Ethical Human Sciences and Services (Breggin 1999a&b). Breggin, P. (2000). Reclaiming our children: A healing solution for a nation in crisis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books. Lambert, N. (1998). Stimulant treatment as a risk factor for nicotine use and substance abuse. Program and Abstracts, pp. 191-8. NIH Consensus Development Conference Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. November 16-18, 1998. William H. Natcher Conference Center. National Institutes of Health. Bethesda, Maryland. Zito, J.M., Safer, D .J., dosReis, S., Gardner, J.F., Boles, J., and Lynch, F. (2000). Trends in the prescribing of psychotropic medications to preschoolers. Journal of the American Medical Association, 283, 1025-1030.