Racial Prescriptions

A recent front-page story in the Boston Globe proclaimed that New England leads the nation in Ritalin prescription levels. Somewhat to my surprise, the prevalence of Ritalin ingestion was generally hailed as a good thing--as indeed it may be in cases of children with ADHD. But to me the most startling aspect of the Globe's analysis was the seeming embrace in many places of Ritalin as a "performance enhancer." Prescription rates are highest in wealthy suburbs.

While the reasons for such a statistical skewing need more exploration than this article revealed, what I found particularly interesting was the speculation that New Englanders have a greater investment in academic achievement: "'Our income is higher than in other states, and we value education,' said Gene E. Harkless, director of the family nurse-practitioner program at the University of New Hampshire. 'We have families that are seeking above-average children.'"

Aren't we all. (And by "all," I mean all--wouldn't it be nice if everyone understood that those decades of lawsuits over affirmative action and school integration meant that poor and inner-city families also "value education" and are "seeking above- average children"?) But Ritalin, after all, works on the body as the pharmacological equivalent of cocaine or amphetamines. It does seem a little ironic that poor inner-city African-Americans, who from time to time do tend to get a little down about the mouth despite the joys of welfare reform, are so much more likely than richer suburban whites to be incarcerated for self-medicating with home-brewed, nonprescription cocaine derivatives. If in white neighborhoods Ritalin is being prescribed as a psychological "fix" no different from reading glasses or hearing aids, it's no wonder the property values are higher. Clearly the way up for ghettos is to sweep those drugs off the street and into the hands of drug companies that can scientifically ladle the stuff into underprivileged young black children. I'll bet that within a single generation, the number of African-Americans taking Ritalin--to say nothing of Prozac and Viagra--will equal rates among whites. Income and property values will rise accordingly. Dopamine for the masses!

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.