The incidence of cases has increased threefold between 1991 and 1995, with the trend still rising. Ritalin is a stimulant, chemically similar to cocaine or amphetamines like speed but, surprisingly, works by actually calming sufferers down. It is a class B drug and its chemical name is methylphenidate hydrochloride. It has been around for 50 years but its use rose dramatically during the nineties with prescriptions doubling every year until 1999. Prescriptions have levelled off but are still rising overall.
Some parents say their children's lives have been transformed for the better by the drug.
Parents in the US are taking legal action against Ritalin manufacturers, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, alleging that the company failed to warn about its possible impact on children's cardiovascular and nervous systems. Here, there have also been allegations of over-prescription of Ritalin, with huge increases in the number of children diagnosed with ADHD and put on psychoactive drugs. Campaigners are concerned that the UK is going the way of the US, where four million children are taking Ritalin. The US author, Elizabeth Wurtzel, who wrote Prozac Nation, told earlier this year how she became addicted to Ritalin, chopping up and snorting up to 40 tablets a day. There are concerns that the use of the medication can mask emotional or other causes of troubled behaviour.