Ritalin a Go-Go

By James Panero | Wednesday, October 21, 1998

American culture is dumbing down. The lower percentiles enjoy more jokes from three hours of cable than ever before. Higher self-esteem brings consumer confidence to mass consumption.

The focus groups look through rose-colored soft contacts while the pledge class at Sam's Club eats a thousand boxes of Mini Wheats.

The elites are oblivious, living in big cities, attending exclusive universities, planing a move to the family chateau in Provence. But those of us between the 65 and 98 percentiles are screwed.

We've already memorized the floor plan to the Mall of America. We understand that Kurt Cobain died for our sins with each new Banana Republic. Starbucks, you are the opiate of our masses. The workers of the world have united and the party headquarters is Pottery Barn.

But I've been assigned to write about Ritalin, and that's what you'll get (insert connecting sentence here).

Science has cooked up labs full of chemicals in recent years that make the modern world more manageable or at least less uninteresting, including but not limited to the 31 flavors of Codeine, Diudinal, Klonopin, Lithium, Paxil, Percodan, Valium, Wellbutrin, Xanax, and Chunky-Monkey Zoloft.

Most of these turned into mother's little helpers, and soon enough Johnny wants his own yellow pill.

Along came Ritalin, the wonder drug that worked wonders, and everything became surprisingly interesting from an Algebra II exam to a single family house in Valley Stream, Long Island.

Filler Information:

Ritalin is the stimulant prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD in children. Prescriptions are up 600 percent in the past five years according to the DEA. In 1996, 7 to 10 percent of boys in the US were on Ritalin at one point, that's two million children, generating $450 million is profit for its manufacturer in that year of study. Ritalin comes in four variety pills from its manufacturer, the CIBA-Geigy corporation: 5mg, 10mg, 20mg, and 20mg SR (slow release). Kids need a note from the psychiatrists to get the drug, but prescriptions are given out readily.

Start Reading Again Here:

As much as the proper use of Ritalin and a hepped up population might concern our sensibilities, improper or 'recreational use' Ritalin concerns the DEA more.
Misuse of Ritalin is now listed as a felony, and the government has tried to limit the number of pills manufactured a year.

Even still, supply has not kept up with demand over the past three years, creating Ritalin shortages in parts of the country and an emerging black market for the prescription drug. The DEA now says Ritalin is misused in two ways, either by cooking up a pill for injection, or crushing it and inhaling it through the nose.

I tried recreational Ritalin about a year ago in a room in the Choates. (Attention offended readers: America's a drugged-out country, you just don't realize it.)

The room was dingy and quite appropriate for a drug just a little cooler than rubber cement.

My friend 'Rob' had a long-running Ritalin prescription but only the 20mg SR variety in his desk drawer.

These pills have a protective coating on their surface to slow the digestion process, and Rob popped it off with a Swiss army knife. He crushed two pulls up into a cadmium-yellow powder with his college ID and sniffed one. John Coltrane was playing on his stereo, and I pretended we were living out that 10th grade On The Road romance of copping morphine scripts in Mexico City. Nothing happened until I developed cottonmouth an hour later. The problem got worse until it felt like I'd gargled with Elmer's glue. Glass after glass of water flushed through my system with the force of the Trevi fountain. Grinding my teeth and fidgeting my fingers I cursed the conductor, leaving the R-Train for good.

Conclusion:

Maybe the Year 2000 will bring a fiery apocalypse but I doubt it. Too interesting. Until then I'm moving to Tuscany.

Ritalin a Go-Go

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