Ritalin is the brand name for methylphenidate, a stimulant prescribed to children and some adults with attention deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD). Until recently, both the diagnosis and the treatment were fairly uncommon. But in the last five years, as ADHD has become a fashionable diagnosis, Ritalin consumption has risen nearly six-fold, according to the DEA. About 2 million Americans will take the drug this year including more than one in every 30 kids ages 5 to 18. With that growth has come a rise in recreational use, especially in high schools and colleges. “You have now unlocked the secret door of the 1990s,” says Dr. Herbert Nieburg, a substance-abuse expert in New York. “The abuse of Ritalin.”
Matt, a sophomore at Colgate, started taking the drug last year. He’d been drinking, and snorted a 20-mg dose. “You can drink a lot more with it,” he says. “I felt like my head was working really quickly.” With so much Ritalin in circulation, it’s easy to get; students sell or give away their prescriptions. Drug professionals put the going rate at $3 to $15 a hit. As the year wore on, Matt started taking it to help focus on his school-work. Soon he was snorting it at least twice a day. “You definitely need more and more. The number of times you do it in a day increases. There’s a real tendency for addiction.” These days Matt has cut back, using it “strictly recreationally,” but points to a friend who is getting “really dependent. If he has to drive a long way he’ll get nervous if he doesn’t have any.”
It is not dear how many people take Ritalin recreationally, or how often. The drug is addictive and, especially if snorted, can have side effects: strokes, hyperthermia, hypertension or seizures. A Virginia teen died last April after snorting Ritalin on top of beer. But these are rare cases; few users end up in rehab or emergency rooms. Most authorities contacted for this story consider Ritalin abuse a small problem with the potential to become bigger. But Lisa A. Herz, a clinical social worker who treats adolescents with drug or alcohol problems, says she has seen a big increase in Ritalin cases, usually in combination with other drug use. “Now 25 percent of the kids I see are taking Ritalin,” Herz says. She calls it mostly a “white, upper-middle-class phenomenon, like anorexia: it’s not widespread, it’s concentrated.” This is the bad news as well as the good news. As Lisa L. admits, “If pot was a 10 [in prevalence], Ritalin would be a 1. But among a certain crowd, it is [common]. It’s very exclusive. I don’t think many people would do something so stupid.” If a high is out there, though, some kids are going to try it. And right now Ritalin, endorsed by the medical establishment, is out there in a big way.
