RITALIN, THE DRUG OF STUDENT CHOICE

This is in response to an article in the Tribune (Dec. 7) discussing how
the drug Ritalin is becoming the "college students' drug of choice."

One cannot but find irony in the extreme when, on the one hand we like to
think of our schools as drug-free zones, and on the other, be furiously
pumping Ritalin into our younger kids in these schools as if trying to set
record profits for psychiatrists and the stockholders of pharmaceutical
companies.

Whose problem are we really trying to solve with this drug, anyway? Anyone
who thinks Ritalin is an innocent drug needs to discover why an alleged
major side effect of Ritalin is suicide. Basic common sense dictates that
any drug that has the power to alter brain chemistry that much is by no
means safe.

How utterly hypocritical. How can we expect our children to shun drug use
and a lifestyle based upon the view that whenever you're having problems
you solve it with drugs, when we allow the psychiatric industry to
virtually shove it down their throats in record amounts at such an early age?

Then wonder in perplexed bewilderment why we now have Ritalin becoming
college students' drug of choice.

James C. Rego, Concord, California