The next drug you should be worried about

There’s a shocking black market in Australian schools, with the ADHD drug Ritalin changing hands for up to $20 a pill, reports Jordan Baker.

With his HSC looming, the teenager was buckling under the pressure. Nerves and too much coffee left him sleepless, anxious and distracted. By the first exam, he was so strung out, he couldn’t concentrate.

“So I got some Ritalin and took half of one before each exam,” said the boy. “I did amazing, I was so focused.”

Where students once turned to NoDoz or Sudafed to cram before exams, they now swear by Ritalin, a low-grade amphetamine dubbed “kiddie cocaine” that is designed to calm people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Students say it helps them concentrate, improves their memory and keeps them awake.

There’s no shortage of Ritalin in schools. Estimates suggest that one in 100 Australian boys and one in 200 girls have ADHD, so at any school there can be dozens of kids with permission to take it.

Some sell their pills in the playground for between $5 and $20 a pill, depending on demand.

Popping pills without prescription is always risky, but in the hands of reckless, stressed teenagers, it can become dangerous, even lethal.

In one incident near Brisbane, 14 Year 9 students took up to 15 Ritalin tablets each and had to be rushed to hospital.

“One of the big fears is that it could unlock a psychotic illness,” says GP Brian Morton. “The adverse reactions with it are really quite common and these are nervousness and insomnia. Some people do get a depressed mood with it and hallucinations.”

There are no figures on Ritalin abuse, but “if you are in a social group where people have a prescription, you are more likely to get them”, says Associate Professor Jayne Lucke from the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research.

“I think there might be hot spots where, in a private school, for example, kids’ parents suggest they might like to do this to get through exams.”

Not everyone is worried. Some argue people should be allowed to take drugs such as Ritalin if it enhances their mental performance, in the same way that drugs enhance sports performance.

In the UK, academics have even suggested drugs such as Ritalin be prescribed to people under 18 to improve their performance at school.

There is, however, plenty of evidence of side-effects, ranging from jitteriness and sleeplessness to depression, hallucinations and even psychosis.

“When people take [Ritalin] unmonitored, they don’t have a doctor saying, is it suitable, do you have other conditions, are you taking other medicine?” says Dr Lucke. “We need those kinds of health safeguards.”

Read more of this story in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.