I don't suffer from ADD/ADHD but I grew up during the 90's, when lots of kids in school, around me, were being put on all kinds of prescription medication, but

I don't suffer from ADD/ADHD but I grew up during the 90's, when lots of kids in school, around me, were being put on all kinds of prescription medication, but most prevalent were the ADD/ADHD prescriptions. Of the roughly 20 names I can remember, who I know for a fact were prescribed ADD/ADHD medications, AND who I knew growing up both before the medication and after, there was only one guy that obviously had problems, and he was a jerk in general, and I avoided him as a rule, regardless of whatever medical attention he may have been receiving. I'm convinced that the rest were pretty much plied with drugs in the name of school grades, and there was no medical basis for their "treatment". I'm sure there were many more than the ones I knew. Years later, now that I am hopelessly dependent on my morning coffee, and can look back on past events equipped with a firm understanding of the nature of stimulants and their affects, from both a therapeutic and recreational perspective, I am all the more convinced that doctors are providing performance enhancing drugs as study aids, where no medical condition exists. Some weak-willed parents are simply swept up in the sales pitch and follow trends like mindless zombies, and other zealously ambitious parents don't even think twice about subjecting their kids to unnecessary medicine if it means success and bragging rights at dinner parties. Still other parents know what the drugs do based on first hand experience, and feel no qualms about providing their kids with something they'd readily consume themselves. The only thing that gnaws at me, is that in quiet suburban parlance, people will happily refer to prescribing their kids "meds" with jaunty, upbeat names conceived by marketing departments, but never EVER will anybody admit to what's really going on. The first time I found a bottle of generic medication in my friend's bathroom medicine cabinet, the reality of all this dawned on me. AMPHETAMINE SALTS, 20MG After years and years of middle school D.A.R.E. seminars, where local sheriffs brought in the folding display cases packed with examples of marijuana, blotter acid, coke vials and packets of crystal meth; after all the TV and radio public service announcements, after school specials, very special episodes of such-and-such-sitcoms, sunday school sermons, and heart-to-heart conversations with adults I could trust; after all the music videos, and tabloid coverage of celebrity scandals, episodes of Jerry Springer, and everything else, there in my hands I held doctor-prescribed amphetamines that my friend had been taking daily since he was a kid. It was then that was when I realized everyone around me, young and old, all of them were just a huge band of highly-skilled bullshit artists.