Doctors Prescribe Stimulants to Low-Income Students for Non-Medical Purposes

The New York Times has reported that more doctors are prescribing stimulants to struggling students from low-income schools. These students are receiving Attention Deficit Disorder medication to improve their academic performance even though many of them do not have ADD.
Dr. Ramesh Raghavan, a child mental health services researcher at Washington University, St. Louis asserts, “We as a society have been unwilling to invest in very effective nonpharmaceutical interventions for these children and their families. We are effectively forcing local community psychiatrists to use the only tool at their disposal, which is psychotropic medications.”
Dr. Nancy Rappaport is a child psychiatrist in Cambridge Massachusetts. She works with low-income school children. She believes these children are being exposed to unnecessary pharmaceutical risks when they are prescribed these medications. “We are seeing this more and more. We are using a chemical straitjacket instead of doing things that are just as important to also do, sometimes more.”
Some side effects of the ADD medications being prescribed are growth suppression and high blood pressure. Sometimes, they can even cause psychotic episodes. Dr. Michael Anderson, a pediatrician from Atlanta, admits he prescribes Adderall to low income students because their families cannot afford other interventions, such as counseling or tutoring. ADD medications have been abused on college campuses after being prescribed to help students concentrate for decades.

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