Guest guest Posted January 12, 2003 Report Share Posted January 12, 2003 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30441Cocaine for kids? By Joel Miller© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com A new study that casts doubts on whether Ritalin usefor youngsters makes them susceptible for drug abuselater in life has sparked people's attention to alittle-known fact: Ritalin reacts in Junior's brainsimilarly to cocaine. Yes, it's true: Methylphenidate (generic moniker forthe brand-name drug Ritalin) targets thepleasure-producing centers of the brain – those thatproduce dopamine – the same way cocaine does. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that makes thephysical side of life fun and pleasurable. When youeat chocolate, for instance, your dopamine level risesand you get a shot of "happy juice." If you relied onchocolate for continual euphoria instead of anoccasional pick-me-up, however, you'd get quite fatbecause your limbic system (in which dopamine does itsduty) is designed to regulate the amount of theneurotransmitter in your system. To keep you fromhaving too much, it reabsorbs the stuff; thus, it'd beback to the Hershey's every little bit. It's like a mental grandma with a cookie jar—shealways gives you enough to feel good, but never enoughto spoil your dinner. Drugs like marijuana and heroin cheat grandma bymaking her produce more cookies than usual, ramping updopamine production. Remember the "I Love Lucy"episode in which Lucy and Ethel got a job at a candyfactory and the production belt started kicking outmore goodies than they could process? That's thepicture. But, as Dominic Streatfeild points out in"Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography," blow is craftierthat pot or smack: "Instead of simply cranking up production in thebrain," explains Streatfeild, "what cocaine does is toblock its reuptake. It does this by hitting a moleculecalled the dopamine transporter, bonding to, and thusdisabling it. As more cocaine is taken, the moredopamine transporters are kept busy, the less dopamineis reabsorbed, thus the more dopamine there isfloating around – the better you feel." What's interesting with Ritalin is that it works thesame way. To be sure, cocaine and Ritalin havedifferent molecular structures, but they areTweedledee and Tweedledum pharmacologically. "According to animal studies, Ritalin and cocaine actso much alike that they even compete for the samebinding sites on neurons," writes Brendan I. Koernerfor Slate. They both vie to block the same dopaminetransporters – like two suitors attracted to the samegirl. Coke and Ritalin produce results so similar that testanimals do not even discriminate between the twodrugs. Writes Richard DeGrandpre, author of "Ritalin Nation,""The laboratory procedures that led to the New YorkTimes' reporting that 'monkeys hooked up intravenouslywill inject themselves [with cocaine] repeatedly,rejecting food, sex and sleep,' also led to thefinding, not reported by the Times, that lab animalsgiven the choice to self-administer comparable dosesof cocaine and Ritalin do not favor one over theother." I suppose the paper of record thought it too much ashocker to report that "the most commonly prescribedpsychotropic medicine for children in the UnitedStates," as DeGrandpre puts it, is comparable ineffect to a drug widely thought to be one of the mosthabituating on earth (perhaps it wasn't fit to print).DeGrandpre notes the paradox: Why aren't all thesemembers of Gen Rx becoming addicted? The main reason, as he points out, is that peopleusually become habituated to drugs they take innon-medical situations. Plenty of people take verystrong opiates as painkillers in hospitals and neverbecome addicted. But if taken in different situationsand with different expectations from the user, theresults could be habituation. The drug's chemistry is,after all, only part of the drug experience. Of course, Ritalin can be had and used in non-medicalcontexts. DeGrandpre notes many such cases, includingkids selling their prescriptions to their fellowsinstead of taking the drug, kids stealing Ritalin fromthe school nurse's office, even teachers stealing itfrom their kids. Explains Koerner, "Recreational users frequently crushtheir supply into fine powder for nasal delivery [ascocaine is usually ingested] or, in extreme cases,melt it into an injectible solution [as Sigmund Freudused to take his cocaine]." Despite the similarity with cocaine and the ease ofabuse – made all the easier by its prolificprescription – Ritalin remains legal and lauded, whilecocaine is profoundly illicit. One of the great ironies of drug policy is that thegovernment damns some abusable substances on one hand,while completely sanctioning them on the other. It'slike a parent who trusts his teen driver with a Honda,but not a Toyota. The metaphor is apt because when it comes to whichsubstances its people wish to ingest, the governmentconsiders itself mother and father and the people itslittle children. Considering the fact that thegovernment is supposed to be the servant of the people– constitutionally, at any rate, it only has powersthey grant – that might be the biggest irony of all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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