Q: What is Ritalin®?
A: Ritalin is the name that a medication called methylphenidate is sold under.
Q: What is Ritalin used for?
A: Doctors use Ritalin to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Ritalin seems to help some people with ADHD pay attention to tasks and reduce impulsive and hyperactive behaviour. It has become a popular way to control difficult behaviour in children, especially at school.
Q: What is the problem with Ritalin?
A: Like a lot of legal drugs, the problem comes when people abuse it by taking more than the doctor prescribed, in order to get high. When abused, Ritalin stimulates the mind and body in much the same way as amphetamines and cocaine.
Q: How do people abuse Ritalin?
A: People who want to get high by using Ritalin usually crush the pills into a powder. That powder is then snorted or dissolved and injected.
Q: What are the effects of Ritalin when it is abused?
A: People who abuse Ritalin can feel a variety of effects. Ritalin can make them alert or drowsy. Sometimes, Ritalin can make them less tired right away, but very tired later. They can lose their appetite, feel nauseous and vomit.
Ritalin can also give people headaches and a fast, irregular heartbeat. It can also leave them feeling dizzy or nervous.
Q: Are there different effects depending on the amount of Ritalin taken?
A: Yes, but even at low doses Ritalin can produce a high. Larger doses can make people exhilarated and excited. With large doses, even moving can be more difficult.
These large doses can make people agitated, confused or paranoid (believing that people are out to get them). Large doses can also cause people to hallucinate (imagine things that aren’t really there). With high doses, their muscles twitch, pupils dilate, and their faces turn red and your heart beats faster and harder. They can even develop a fever and start sweating.
Very high doses can make you delirious. You could go into seizures and even go into a coma.
If people inject Ritalin and share needles, they have a greater risk of certain diseases, including hepatitis and HIV (the virus that causes AIDS).
Q: What are the effects of taking Ritalin for months or years?
A: Remember that the drug does have a legal use. It is used to treat children who are hyperactive or who have attention problems. When it is used this way with a doctor’s supervision, some children become less hyperactive and are more able to pay attention. They often do better in school because they are able to finish tasks and think about their actions before acting.
People who inject high doses of Ritalin daily can become paranoid (believing that people are out to get them). This seems to go away when they stop using the drug.
Q: Is Ritalin addictive?
A: People who abuse Ritalin for a long time do develop a tolerance. This means they need more Ritalin to get the effects they got from a smaller amount when they first started abusing the drug.
Some people may become dependent on the way Ritalin makes them feel. They may panic if they are unable to get more, and crave it if they try to stop using it. They may also become exhausted and severely depressed when they try to stop using Ritalin.
