Study shows no link between ADHD medication and drug abuse

WASHINGTON A new report published in the March issue of the American Journal for Psychiatry states that children who are given psycho-stimulants for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder are not more susceptible to begin abusing drugs and alcohol than their peers.

ADHD is a disorder that includes systems of inability to focus, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. According to the Wall Street Journal, 9 percent of children have ADHD in America, but only 32 percent get the medication needed to treat it.

The report was funded by the National Institutes of health and was designed by the Massachusetts General Hospital investigators whose main goal was to make sure to cover all necessary angles in order to receive the correct data for the relationship between drug abuse and ADHD medication.

The researchers interviewed 112 men between the ages of 16 and 27, a decade after they were diagnosed with ADHD and asked about their consumption of tobacco, alcohol, drugs and the type of medication they used. The study concluded that there was no relationship between substance abuse and the prescription ADHD medicines.

“This study is a continuing effort to explicate the factors that mediate risk. It is methodologically sound and suggests that, as always, things are more complicated than we want them to be. The study demonstrates that the use of psycho-stimulants for ADHD children does not increase the risk for substance abuse in adulthood, but it also suggests there is no protective effect,” said Jon Shaw, director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of Miami.