KIDS BUY AND SELL RITALIN-TYPE DRUGS

She had no idea she had a popular party drug on hand.

To her, the vial of prescription pills she had once been given to treat
attention deficit disorder were just leftovers, until a friend from New
York called to ask if she'd mail out a few -- just for fun.

The woman, a 29-year-old San Diego resident, did not do it. But she and her
friends were intrigued.

"We said, 'We should just try it. It could be fun,' " says the woman who,
on the condition that she not be named, told how they partied on the drug
once this summer and again in September.

In this case, the stimulant of choice was Adderall, an amphetamine. Others
use methylphenidate, another attention-deficit drug more widely known by
one of its brand names: Ritalin.

Whatever the type, authorities are concerned about ADD drug abuse.

Some unprescribed users are adults. But experts say many are young people
- -- a good number of them grade schoolers, who get the drugs from peers
being treated for ADD.

"They've got pretty easy access to it," says Steve Walton, a detective with
the Calgary Police Service in Canada and author of the book "First Response
Guide to Street Drugs."

Users often crush the pills and snort them to get a cocaine-like rush.

Walton says he also has found youths who frequent the rave dance-party
scene "stacking" the drug Ecstasy with Ritalin to try and prolong their
high. He calls the practice "alarming."

Reports of ADD stimulant abuse continue to surface in this country, too.
They include the case of two rural teens arrested in January for stealing
$9,700 worth of drugs, including Ritalin and amphetamines, from a pharmacy
in tiny Lacon, Ill.

In March, 11 sixth-graders in Scituate, R.I., were suspended for buying and
selling prescription drugs, including Adderall and Concerta, a newer form
of methylphenidate.

Surveys of young people -- from Massachusetts to the Midwest -- also have
documented the trend.

One of them, published in this month's Psychology in the Schools journal,
focused on 651 students, ages 11 to 18, from Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Researchers found that more than a third of students who took
attention-deficit medication said they had been asked to sell or trade
their drugs. And more than half of students who were not prescribed the
medication said they knew students who gave away or sold their medication.

"I've been trying to tell anyone who will listen," says William
Frankenberger, study co-author and a psychology professor at the University
of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. "People don't realize what these drugs are -- and
that the similarities between them and cocaine are much greater than the
differences."

Terrance Woodworth, deputy director of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's diversion control office, says the age range of users is
expanding.

"The kids who were abusing in junior high and high school are now in
college," Woodworth says.