Disclaimer: I've rewritten this a couple times now, and I'm finding it difficult to express myself without posting potential flamebait. I am not saying with this post, for example, that taking a small dose of Wellbutrin as a child will result in you stealing a car and driving around the Northeast really strung out on controlled substances.

When I met a friend of mine, adderall came up in discussion. He was on it for three or four years as a child and is now completely deadset against the use of medication in ADHD. We went down this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall#Side_effects - "Had that, had that, had that...swelling of the hands and feet, didn't have that." Another friend of mine grabbed his hand and slapped it four or five times, and he said "Swelling goes down. It might account for why you have no feeling in your hands."

He had some really terrible reactions to that drug. He didn't get off it until he slipped a few into his mother's drink, which resulted in her having hallucinations.

A person I've met a couple times has been medicated from the age of eight. He recently stole a couple grand from his parents in a violent confrontation, then their car, and drove around with some friends around the Northeastern US for a couple weeks, really strung out on, I believe, opiates. My father recently met a man whose nine year-old son was medicated with an anti-psychotic.

That said, I really don't agree with medicating children for mental disorders. I think, eventually, society will view the use of amphetamines and amphetamine salts in children the same way they do the use of involuntary electroshock therapy or bleeding with a lancet. I'm an aspie, that is, I'm on the autistic spectrum, and I would probably be a different person entirely if my parents decided to feed me pills as a child. Not different in a good way, either.

Diet is probably a major factor in some of the negative aspects of these disorders and so-called disorders. I feel more focused and less bitter since I've gone off of processed foods (probably gluten). I don't see why anyone would medicate their children when there are so many other options out there.