nment restrictions on manufacturing quotas, the amount of the drug available is limited and abuse of the drug hinders the number of pills on the legal market, (Bailey, 2). One of the most common places of illegal sale of Ritalin lies on the school yards of America; enterprising children see the opportunity to make some money and neglect their parents’ waste of money every time a prescription is written, (McCormick, 3). Society reaps a harvest of malignant effects by the abuse of Ritalin and most people see nothing wrong.III.WHAT WE CAN DO TO HELP SOLVE THE PROBLEMRitalin creeps into society as a drug with a big name and reputation for being used widely. But as its popularity increases for the treatment of the increasing ADD diagnoses, the question of who should and should not be drugged arises. The theory and practice of mental health in the United States and the relationship between health and illness also becomes questionable. As Dr. Mark Vonnegut wrote in The Boston Globe, The diagnosis of ADHD tells us more about ourselves then we want to know… (Parents) truly believe their child is suffering from an inability to learn or fit in, and without treatment will suffer peer rejection or academic failure. Vonnegut notes that these children are diagnosed because they are in conflict with adults… ADHD offers an explanation that absolves parents and teachers of having any responsibility for the conflict, (Buonomano, 8). The psychiatrists who design the scientific research, come up with the diagnostic categories and prescribe stimulant drugs, rarely explore how children are being viewed or taught. Most of the numerous educational and scientific journals tend to ignore matters such as classroom organization, teachers' attitudes toward the child, and all other elaborate components in the social system.Furthermore, by focusing on the symptoms and defining them as attention deficits, we ignore the possibility that the beh...
