No Link Between ADHD Medications and Drug Abuse

For a few years now, there have been some worries among parents and patients that ADHD medication had more than just short-term side effects on the children taking them. One of the most recent concerns regarding this was the possibility of these medications making children more vulnerable to substance abuse later on in life. These worries have been around for a few years now, with some reports of cases where parents refused the medication for their children out of fear of this development.

The worry over this has had a different effect on doctors, who have very few alternatives when parents refuse to let their children be treated for their ADHD with medication. The worries over a possible vulnerability to later substance abuse came to a head fairly recently, with a few independent laboratories and pharmaceutical companies deciding to find out the truth once and for all.

Two of those teams have published their findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry, in hopes of alleviating the worries of the parents and doctors concerned. One of the teams, headed by Salvatore Mannuzza of New York University, followed a group of 176 subjects for 17 years, all of whom had been prescribed Ritalin as ADHD medication during their childhood years.

The results of the NYU team found that among those who had taken the medication at age 6 or 7, there was the same risk factor of drug or alcohol abuse as young adults. The percentage found was 27%. This is in comparison to a similar group who were not given any form of ADHD medication, with a slightly higher rate of 29% of drug or alcohol abuse. For those children who were given Ritalin at a higher age - 8 through 12, according to the study - the percentage of future abuse was much higher, at 44%. However, the overall findings indicate that it might be less a matter of Ritalin itself, and more connected to the presence of ADHD in the child.

The second team was from the Massachusetts General Hospital, led by a Dr. Joseph Biederman. Like the NYU study, this team focused on attempting to find long-term data for the problem to truly evaluate the risk factors involved in the use of ADHD medication. The team tracked a group of boys with ADHD for a decade, with some of that group having received medication in the form of stimulants while others were not given any. The findings showed that those who were given pharmaceutical treatments for their condition showed neither an increase nor decrease in their risks of falling to alcohol or drug abuse as young adults. The risk factors, according to the study, were the same as the portion of the group that had not been given any sort of medication.

Some consider the results of these studies to be very timely, in light of the recent finding that 5 to 10% of all children in the world are diagnosed with ADHD. Addiction, being considered a global problem on a similar - of not worse - scale, has also been a concern. The findings show that there is no increased risk, which means that parents can feel at ease with them, and doctors no longer have to worry about seeking alternative treatments for the condition.