ADS is probably the result of modern living - fast, multi choiced, need it
now culture. Kids are simply responding to that. Ritalin and other such
responsive drugs - many anti-depressants for example - etc are simply a
response to the modern environment - souless, isolated, impersonal, endless
roads, supermarket diets etc...It seems to me that this subject, like many,
is simply a symptom of our times and reliance on science as a form of
problem solving when it is the everyday politics of our lives and how we
live them which have the answers. Humans have an amazing capacity to create
enormous problems for themselves from nowhere and then turn to science for
the answer to those problems, thereby creating more problems...usually for
some experts to make a living out of...who are usually called doctors...and
the drug companies...the disability movement is a political one and this is
a political issue - not a medical one. However, the problem is - and always
has been with personal politics - is that people live in the world as it is
and not as it should or could be - trying to balance out these two strands
is not easy...but an acceptance that the use of such drugs is potentially
dangerous and unnacceptable if we call ourselves civilised and modern is a
step forward to acknowledging that our environment is sick - not the kids...
Glenn
Dr Glenn Smith,
Researcg Fellow,
London.
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