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The Ritalin Gap
Posted on Mon, Feb. 09, 2004
A PART OF THE OBSERVER'S `RITALIN GAP' SERIES
`Poor man's cocaine'
Growing number of youths are abusing Ritalin, law enforcement says
ERIC FRAZIER
Staff Writer
Jennifer doesn't have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but she knows
exactly how a Ritalin "buzz" makes you feel.
"It's the poor man's cocaine," said the UNC Charlotte junior, who didn't want
her last name disclosed. "You get really jacked up. You talk a mile a minute.
Some people use it to get up for tests."
Welcome to the dark side of the debate over attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder. Officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration say growing
numbers of teenagers and college students are using Ritalin and other
stimulants without a prescription. They do it for simple thrills or for a
pre-exam jolt of extra alertness.
Kids who don't have prescriptions beg or buy them from friends who do.
Sometimes, Jennifer said, they crush them and snort the powder like cocaine.
She recalled a former roommate who had a prescription for Adderall, another
stimulant used for treating attention deficit troubles. The roommate's
boyfriend had a prescription for Ritalin.
Jennifer said the duo shared their pills with her and her boyfriend. The four
sometimes stayed up all night playing cards, buoyed by booze and stimulants.
"It's stupid. A lot of kids are just looking for a high," said Jennifer.
That's what worries the DEA.
Abuse of stimulants by teenagers and college students has been rising over the
past decade, said Gretchen Feussner, a pharmacologist with the agency's drug
and chemical evaluations section.
"Whenever you have an abusable substance," Feussner said, "the greater the
availability, the greater the potential for abuse."
She said more high school and college students are abusing stimulants because
the drugs are more widely used than in previous decades. Stimulant use has
risen substantially during the past couple of decades. It doubled between 1990
and 1995 alone, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Taken at high doses, stimulants can cause central nervous system damage and
hypertension. Feussner said it's hard to tell exactly how many kids abuse the
drugs, but added: "It occurs frequently enough that it gets on our radar
screen."
In 2002, hospitals nationwide reported more than 3,200 emergency room visits
involving abuse of central nervous system stimulants such as methylphenidate
(Ritalin), according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network. That was down from
1997, when more than 6,000 such visits occurred.
Those numbers are small compared with cocaine or marijuana abuse. Authorities
recorded more than 199,000 emergency room visits in 2002 involving cocaine
abuse, and more than 119,000 involving marijuana.
DEA agents in both Carolinas said they haven't had troubles recently with
illegal trading of methylphenidate or other attention deficit disorder drugs.
"In North Carolina, I'm not aware of any public problems with the prescriptions
of Ritalin," said David Gaddis, assistant special agent in charge of the
agency's N.C. district office in Charlotte.
John Ozaluk, agent in charge of DEA offices in South Carolina, said his agents
haven't encountered major traffic in such drugs either. He added, however, that
in areas where more of the pills are prescribed, "perhaps there is a greater
chance of it falling into the wrong hands ...Our concern is when you're
prescribing to children or young adults, the possibility is always there that
they might sell them or give them out to their friends."
Dr. Russell Barkley, a nationally noted attention deficit researcher at the
Medical University of South Carolina, believes some DEA officials exaggerate
the threat posed by Ritalin abuse.
He said abuse of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs is negligible, especially
compared with abuse of alcohol, marijuana and cigarettes.
"It is out there. It does happen," he said. "Do I think it's a major problem?
No."
He drew a distinction between dependency on a drug and experimenting with it.
He said college kids tend to use it to stay awake and study for exams, not just
for a voyeuristic high.
Last year, Barkley led researchers in a study that found no evidence that
treating hyperactive children with stimulants sensitizes them to drugs and
increases their risk of later drug abuse.
Jennifer, the UNC Charlotte student, said she no longer takes the stimulants.
But she added that if her experience is any guide, abuse of the drugs is
disturbingly common among college students.
"A lot of people do have problems concentrating," she said, "but I don't know
that it's as many (people) as have the prescriptions."