The Effect of Stimulants on America's Youth

The Effect Speed has on America's Youth
Never before have pharmaceutical drugs affected such a large percent of the population. Furthermore these drugs are progressively being prescribed to a younger age group. It almost seems as though pharmaceutical companies are inventing diseases/illnesses. The prescription drugs that I see most commonly prescribed to misdiagnosed patients are stimulants. Adderall, Ritalin, and many more are revolutionary phenomena. They are given to control the natural behavior of children as young as 7 years old.
Ritalin and adderall have been around for quite for some time now, but just recently has attention deficit disorder been such a common diagnosis. Could it be true that current generations are just developing more problems with focusing, and the pharmaceutical companies are merely compensating to keep up with the demand for the drug? If this is true, than what is the changing variable in the present world, which has created such an unnatural state of mind? Psychiatrists often claim that patient’s brains are not producing enough of a certain chemical and these pills simply bring the brain to its nature/normal state. Or are the majority of these cases being misdiagnosed while the pharmaceutical companies make large profit. Almost any student who has tried the drug will admit that adderall (or other stimulants in the same class) help them study. Whether one has or doesn’t have attention deficit disorder, it doesn’t change the fact that the drug is beneficiary to some degree. Unlike a diabetic who needs insulin to function, while a non-diabetic would not get the same beneficiary results, stimulants help almost everybody, feel absolutely fascinated toward subjects that were possibly the most laborious and dry. A drug that gives you confidence to participate in class and speak colorfully in ways that you would have never imagined. The drug does not seem to provoke “one’s natural state of mind” at all. Since the drug is relatively new, not all long-term effects can really be understood.
It seems absurd that speed is legal and even encouraged in many ways by the government and society. The effects of stimulants help mold people in to a successful member of society. Children suddenly get good feed back from impressed teachers. It provokes a sudden desire to organize and clean your surroundings. List making is very common. Kids that previously found them selves’ daydreaming and making unpredictable decisions now want to spend every moment doing something productive and planned. Our society seems to cater to predominantly left-brain thinkers, and this drug is leeching the spontaneity and creative nature of many right brain thinkers.