Would you give your child cocaine? What about Ritalin? The Drug Enforcement Administration classifies methylphenidate (Ritalin) in the same Schedule II category as speed, cocaine and the most potent opiates and barbiturates.

Schedule II includes only those drugs with the very highest potential for addiction and abuse. Many teachers and health care professionals are concerned that we are sending the wrong message about drugs to our children by advocating stimulants like Ritalin for hyperactivity and Attention Deficit Disorder(ADD).

Before it became popular in the 1980's, methylphenidate was one of the most commonly used street drugs. In fact, some youngsters who are prescribed Ritalin sell the drug to their friends as R-Ball or vitamin r.

According to DEA statistics, emergency room admissions due to Ritalin abuse numbered 1,171 in 1994. The side effects of Ritalin addiction include strokes, hypertension and seizures. Several deaths have been attributed to Ritalin abuse, including that of a high school senior in Roanoke, Virginia, who died from snorting Ritalin after drinking beer.

Known side-effects of Ritalin include nervousness, insomnia, unhealthy weight loss, stunted growth, facial tics and headaches. Withdrawal from Ritalin can cause depression.

Studies by the National Institute of Mental Health have shown that while Ritalin may reduce disturbance and increase compliance it is less reliable in bringing about long term improvements in academics and social relationships.

Many scientists and physicians are concerned about the long term effects of the drug on brain chemistry. The long term effects of Ritalin in children have not been well documented. Those who advocate medicating children with Ritalin and other drugs often view ADHD as a specific "mental illness" with a genetic and biochemical cause.

However, experts do not agree on the cause of ADD. A child who is inattentive, overly talkative, impulsive and excessively irritable and is hyperactive for his or her age is often labelled ADD.

According to Eric Jones, a Dean of Academic Affairs at Bastyr College in Seattle, Washington at least 80 percent of the children he treats in his practice have been misdiagnosed.

"It is essential to have an accurate diagnosis made through cognitive function testing and other developmental testing," said Dr. Jones.

Some professionals do not view ADD as a disease at all, but a dangerous label placed on very active or very creative children. They believe that children labelled ADD may be suffering from learning disabilities, an unstable home life, food allergies, food additives, excessive sugar ingestion, or heavy metal toxicity.

"The ADHD diagnosis is simply a list of the behaviours that most commonly cause conflict or disturbance in classrooms, especially those that require a high degree of conformity," said psychiatrist and author Peter R. Breggin M.D.

"When a small child, perhaps five or six years old, is persistently disrespectful or angry, there is always a stressor in that child's life-something over which the child has little or no control.

Sometimes, the child is not being respected, because children learn more by example than by anything else.

"While the source of the child's upset may turn out to be more complicated than that-perhaps the parent is too afraid or distracted to apply rational discipline and lets the child run wild, or perhaps the child is being abused outside the home-the source always lies in the larger world."

Dr. Breggin who is Director of the International Study for Psychiatry testified before the US House of Representatives in September 2000 against the use of Ritalin for ADD.

"Parents throughout the country are being pressured and coerced 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," testified Dr. Breggin.

Dr. Breggin noted that in his practice practice, children could usually be taken off drugs with great improvement in their psychological life and behaviour, provided that the parents or other interested adults are willing to learn new approaches to disciplining.

Studies show Ritalin works by reducing exploration and curiosity, socialising and playing, and by increasing obsessive compulsive behaviour including very limited overly focused activity.

Although Ritalin may have the desired effect in the short run, it does not address the root of the problem and there is concern about its long term effects.

Dr. Breggin believes that when we diagnose and drug our children, we disempower ourselves as adults. "While we may gain momentary relief from guilt by imagining that the fault lies in the brains of our children, ultimately we undermine our ability to make the necessary adult interventions that our children need. We literally become bystanders in the lives of our children," he said.

In my next column I will examine alternatives to drugs for ADD and talk to health care professionals about them.