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Cocaine use continues to be a public health problem, yet despite concerted efforts, no drugs have been approved to resolve cocaine addiction. Research suggests that the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug methylphenidate (MPH; Ritalin) could serve as a cocaine-replacement therapy, but clinical results have been mixed. Although several labs have produced MPH derivatives for testing, parts of the molecule remained chemically inaccessible. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have cleared that hurdle. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 5 million Americans reported actively using cocaine in 2020, and almost 25,000 Americans died of a cocaine-related overdose...

Kobe Bryant potentially built his $600 million fortune with ADHD, as autopsy report revealed narcolepsy drug Kobe Bryant played a long and successful career in the NBA, but as per his autopsy report, he may have been battling ADHD. Kobe’s legacy was built up by everything he achieved in his career, his five rings, Finals MVPs, scoring titles, and more, but a major part of his also the fact that he spent his entire career with the Lakers. In an era defined by player autonomy and the right to take your brand anywhere, Kobe chose to stay put. He stayed...

(Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Friday nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to become a federal appeals court judge. Biden's latest slate of nine new judicial nominees included Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights whom the president picked to serve on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Biden's latest nominees continued the White House's push to diversify the federal bench. They include Daniel Calabretta, a California state court judge nominated...

In the wake of recent senseless acts of violence, especially in schools, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) urged state authorities and educators not to adopt “mental health screening” in schools in the false hope that it could prevent the violence... the newer antidepressants “boost serotonin levels in the brain” and “in rare cases, they can contribute to extreme violence, murder and suicide, particularly in the first few weeks they are taken.... Dr. Effrem stated, “There are so many problems with the foundation of these programs, it is difficult to know where to begin. Let’s...

Incoming National Rifle Association President Oliver North says school shootings are the product of a “culture of violence,” not the Second Amendment. “The problem that we’ve got is we’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptom without treating the disease,” Mr. North said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence.” He said everything from violence on television to Ritalin, a drug used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, may be contributing to the problem. “Nearly all of these perpetrators are...

Pregnant women who take drugs like Ritalin and Concerta for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely than those who don’t to have babies with heart deformities and other birth defects, a recent study suggests. Researchers examined data on more than 1.8 million pregnancies in the U.S., including 2,072 women who used methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, Daytrana) and 5,571 who took an amphetamine (Adderall) during their first trimester. Overall, women who took methylphenidate were 11 percent more likely to have a baby with birth defects and 28 percent more likely to have infants with heart malformations than women who didn’t...

I remember a LOT of discussion during the '80s and '90s about what was going to happen in the future to the kids whose parents were feeding them mood-altering drugs like Ritalin to calm the little hellions down. Are we seeing the results right now?

Nootropics, the new staple ‘brain enhancers’ in Silicon Valley that purport to increase productivity and perception, exist in an unregulated legal gray area in the U.S. In Colombia, you can pick up even the shadiest kinds over the counter. I did just that. In the months before a recent trip to Colombia, off to visit an expat friend living there, I had been hearing about nootropics. Or “smart drugs,” as they’re referred to. Brain enhancers. Mental magic. Depending on which site you’ve read that’s proclaimed them the new “It” drug for bio-hackers of every stripe, all roads lead to the...

Journalist Michael Hastings, who was killed in a fiery Los Angeles crash in June, died of "traumatic injuries" as a result of the accident and had traces of drugs in his system, Los Angeles coroner's officials said Tuesday. Hastings, 33, died June 18 in a single-vehicle accident. His car burst into flames and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Coroner's officials said Hastings had traces of amphetamine in his system, consistent with possible intake of methamphetamine many hours before death, as well as marijuana. Neither were considered a factor in the crash, according to toxicology reports.

Wall Street Journal misses implications of its own story. ---This is an important post if you teach in a school where Ritalin is often prescribed. Or if you have children who are taking Ritalin.---The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about whether Ritalin works. I believe they missed the main point. Ritalin works if by that you mean it calms children down. Ritalin does not work if by that you mean they will automatically become better students, or that their underlying problems will be solved. The tendency in the schools is to act as though anxiety is a primary...

Studies of Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Find Little Change It's no longer shocking to hear of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—and others simply facing a big test—taking ADHD medicine to boost their performance in school. But new studies point to a problem: There's little evidence that the drugs actually improve academic outcomes. Stimulants used to treat ADHD like Ritalin and Adderall are sometimes called "cognitive enhancers" because they have been shown in a number of studies to improve attention, concentration and even certain types of memory in the short-term. Similar drugs were given to World War II soldiers to...

Studies Indicate Up To 35% Of College Students Use ADHD Drugs As Study AidsNew York’s senior senator wants colleges to come back from summer break with a plan on how to deal with abuse of prescription ADHD pills. Sen. Charles Schumer, speaking from his Midtown office on Sunday, said up to 35 percent of all college kids report using stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin as a study tool. “That’s sort of academic doping,” said Schumer. “There are better ways to pull an all-nighter and stay up. There’s coffee, there’s things like NoDoz.” play Sen. Schumer Seeks Crackdown On 'Academic Doping'WCBS...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week that nearly one-fifth of high school-age boys have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Doctors eventually medicate two-thirds of them. The diagnoses represent a 41 percent increase over the last decade. The primary gateway drug for teenagers isn’t marijuana or beer. It’s prescription medication. As the New York Times piece breaking this story points out, feeding a child a daily diet of Ritalin increases the chances of dependency, anxiety, and psychosis. Sports once channeled the energy of testosterone-fueled teens. Now our overprotective culture complains of the dangers of...

Psychotropic drugs have been used for the purpose of suppressing fear and enabling murderous rage for a long time. In Dispatches, his extraordinary book about the war in Vietnam, Michael Herr passes this along about the use of drugs by American soldiers: Going out at night the medics gave you pills. . . . I knew one 4th Division Lurp [Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol] who took his pills by the fistful, downs from the left pocket of his tiger suit and ups from the right, one to cut the trail, the other to send him down it. He told me that...

THREE million children in this country take drugs for problems in focusing. Toward the end of last year, many of their parents were deeply alarmed because there was a shortage of drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that they considered absolutely essential to their children’s functioning. But are these drugs really helping children? Should we really keep expanding the number of prescriptions filled? In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder. As a psychologist who has been studying the development of troubled children for more than 40 years, I believe we should...

A special education teacher wrote to me about the abuse of Ritalin. The teacher said: “My students are on Ritalin. This is a brain shrinking, top tier heavily psychotropic drug, as you know. The authorities KNOW this is their weapon for the most intelligent boys... ” The teacher believes this is a high-level NWO plot, which is not a road I like to go down. But the teacher got me thinking... Here are the two parts I’m personally sure of: 1) The Education Establishment in this country, for 75 years, has used bogus methods (i.e., Whole Word) to teach reading....

Are we experiencing an explosion of mental illness among young children in Britain? That is what you’d reasonably conclude, looking at the rise in the number of prescriptions issued for psychiatric medicines for them. One of the commonest of childhood brain disorders is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It is in the news again: Darren Hucknall, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, has made a formal complaint to the NHS after his 10‑year-old son, Harry Hucknall, hanged himself. Harry was being treated with fluoxetine (Prozac) – an anti-depressant – and methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin or Equasym, the standard treatment for ADHD.

If there were a drug that would make you smarter, would you take it? Today an increasing number of healthy people are using drugs without a prescription as a way to improve their mental function. It's called neuroenhancement and if you want to find someone who's trying it out, just visit a college campus. That's where a surprising number of students are turning to drugs like Adderall and Ritalin, originally developed to treat attention disorders, to boost their brain power and help them make the grade

Doctors treat millions of children with Ritalin every year to improve their ability to focus on tasks, but scientists now report that Ritalin also directly enhances the speed of learning. In animal research, the scientists showed for the first time that Ritalin boosts both of these cognitive abilities by increasing the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine deep inside the brain. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers neurons use to communicate with each other. They release the molecule, which then docks onto receptors of other neurons. The research demonstrated that one type of dopamine receptor aids the ability to focus, and another...

College students, of course, have been using stimulants for years: They take such things as modafinil, Adderall, and Ritalin (euphemistically known on campuses as "vitamin R") to enhance their memories for exams or to stay up all night and press out a term paper. By one estimate, at least 10 percent of American college students use prescription drugs as study aids. Now the general adult population is turning to the pills, too – often illegally – to boost productivity and enhance their mental prowess on the job. Some experts laud the development: They think it's time to consider making the...