'CHEMICAL COSH DRUG PUTTING YOUNG AT RISK'

BRITISH doctors were yesterday warned to curb the use of a 'miracle
drug' which is being given to thousands of hyperactive children.

The International Drugs Control Board - a United Nations agency -
reported that the number of prescriptions for Ritalin doubled in this
country last year.

Although no official Department of Health figures are yet available
for 1998, the UN figures suggest that around 15,000 British children
are now being prescribed the drug for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder.

Those with ADHD find it impossible to concentrate and are jittery,
restless and compulsive.

Ritalin is an amphetamine-type stimulant which makes the body's
'feelgood' chemical dopamine more available in the brain.

Some experts claim the drug is being used as a 'chemical cosh' to
quieten difficult children. In the United States, babies as young as
12 months have been given the drug and the number of prescriptions is
rocketing.

But fears have been growing about the long-term effects of Ritalin.
One study - disputed by other scientists - found that youngsters who
take Ritalin are more likely to smoke in adulthood and three times as
likely to abuse cocaine. Some experts say that when Ritalin was
'snorted' by cocaine users, they reported that its effects were
almost the same as for cocaine itself.

Last April, Dr Nora Volkow, director of nuclear medicine at the
Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, told New Scientist
magazine of tests involving Ritalin. 'We've given it to cocaine users
and they say it's almost indistinguishable,' she said.

Other tests, however, have found no link between Ritalin and drug
abuse.

Last year, the International Drugs Control Board expressed deep
concern about the use of Ritalin in America.

The board found American patients were using 330million daily doses of
the substance compared with 65million doses for patients in the rest
of the world.

The board's president Hamid Ghodse said yesterday that oversub-
scription of the drug was a severe problem around the globe. 'It goes
hand in hand with attitudes encouraging pharmaceutical solutions for
all social and behavioural problems, no matter how minor,' he said.

He asked how children could be expected to refrain from abusing drugs
when they had been exposed to such medicines so readily. The board
has warned that use of the drug in Britain and Ireland may soon reach
U.S. levels. In Britain, Ritalin or Methlyphenidate - is now the most
popular treatment for ADHD in youngsters. Up to 5 per cent of boys
and 2 per cent of girls are thought to be affected by the disorder.

Last night, the Department of Health admitted that the use of Ritalin
was soaring in Britain.

A spokesman said doctors wrote 2,600 prescriptions for the drug in
1992.

The figure for England alone reached 92,000 in 1997. With each child
using about 12 prescriptions a year it means about 7,700 were given
the drug in that year.

But the spokesman added that the Government was responsible only for
licensing the drug. 'It is for doctors to make the clinical decisions
about whether it is the appropriate treatment,' she said.

Ritalin's manufacturer Novartis Pharmaceuticals said: 'The safety and
efficacy of Ritalin is one of the most widely-researched areas in
child behaviour disorders.'