Is ritalin the new steroid?

As this week is currently a break for me I decided to catch up on my reading. Right now I am engrossed in Alexandra Robbins' "The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids." As I was reading today I came across a tiny section in which they discussed the pros and cons of medication for ADHD. Having been diagnosed with ADD for some time now I was intrigued to hear Robbins make comparisons to ADHD meds, (such as Ritalin and Adderall) to steroids. This was made in the context that pro-athletes us performance enhancing drugs to excel in their profession much in the same way that adolescents and young adults now use ADHD meds to increase their ability to study. While she in no way bashed properly diagnosed individuals she brought to light an issue that is becoming increasingly common in todays society...overdiagnosis/misdiagnosis of ADHD.

That being said, I was most intrigued by the viewpoint that the author brought to light. Being pretty anti-steroid myself I was able to see the viewpoints of those Robbins talked about in her book, who felt that those overachieving students who use ADHD medication, without a proper diagnosis and for the sole purpose of getting that competitive edge over their peers, are somehow cheating the system. Under intense pressure to measure up to impossible standards that are set, are we really pushing our youth to go to this extreme? It is all to common around finals, both in high schools and at college campuses, to find students using these drugs in order to stay awake and achieve a heightened sense of alertness. Like steroids it does help these students gain an edge that would have otherwise not been present had they not ingested these substances. But would these students, without access to these drugs, not have found another way to achieve the same results given such intense pressure...probably.

So what is the solution then? Decrease pressure put upon these students to achieve unrealistic goals set by the educational sysem? Put tigher restrictions on the sale and illegal possession of these drugs? Have stricter diagnostic procedures when testing for ADHD? ...Only time will tell the impact that our drugged youth will have in the future. But needless to say it is easy to point fingers at athletes and accuse them of cheating the system rather then notice that something similar is happening in our backyards. I was quite impressed with this comparison...