I’ve prescribed Ritalin type drugs to children for 33 years. In the early 1990s I began feeling ethically uneasy about my professional role. I went public with my concerns in a book called “Running on Ritalin.” In the process I was involuntarily enlisted into what has been called, “The Ritalin Wars,” an often-polemical public debate about whether psychiatric drugs are good or bad for children.
Recently I published an article on The Huffington Post called “The United States of Adderall.” I mentioned that we are 4 percent of the world’s population but produce 88 percent of the world’s legal amphetamine (Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, etc.) virtually all for the treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adults. I tried to maintain a balanced view on ADHD and medication. The article generated over 200 mostly extreme comments from my point of view.