Adderall XR is arranged in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Tuesday, August 15th. Shire Plc shares rose as much as 6.4 percent after the company settled a patent lawsuit with Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., protecting Shire’s best-selling Adderall XR hyperactivity drug from cheaper rival copies until 2009. PHOTOGRAPHER: JB REED
Source: Time
Especially if they’ve ever given their drugs to someone else
Children who take commonly-prescribed stimulants to treat their attention disorders are more likely to be victimized at school than children who do not have ADHD, according to a new study.
The findings come from a survey of almost 5,000 children in five public school across four years, comparing those who had ADHD; those who had recently been prescribed medication for it; those whose medication had ever been “diverted,” meaning it didn’t get to its intended recipient; and kids with no diagnosis.
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“We know that among adolescents in the U.S., prescription stimulants are some of the most misused and shared diverted and drugs,” says Quyen Epstein-Ngo, a research assistant Psychology professor at the University of Michigan. “We also know that bullying is a real issue. There was some research that suggested that kids were having their medication stolen or were being coerced into giving it away.”
Epstein-Ngo believes access to the drugs may be one of the reasons that children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are targeted.
“Kids who have a prescription are twice as likely to be victimized as those without ADHD,” says Epstein-Ngo, and for those who had ever shared their prescription, whether willingly or under duress, that likelihood more than doubled.
Children who have either shared their medication or had it taken from them in the previous 12 months were also even more likely—four and a half times more likely—to be frequently bullied, the study showed.