Editor:
I thought Scott Lewis? opinion article, ?A Tom Sawyer on Ritalin Is a Sad Image,? printed Feb. 14 was great!
I very heartily agree with him that Ritalin is overprescribed. He did a great job wondering what the medical side-effects would be later.
However, I do think that he forgot to mention another side effect of Ritalin. Kids who are forced to use Ritalin to concentrate on school when they are younger are not going to have the self-discipline necessary to be able concentrate on school without the use of drugs when they are without the use of drugs when they are older.
One of the major skills that school teaches you is how to sit down and concentrate on work. What these kids are learning is that they need drugs to be able to do this!
This starts a very real cycle of dependence.
While this is just my opinion, I believe that this is as bad of a side effect as any future medical side effects the drug may have.
Megan Keller
Junior, Japanese