I just want to say that I have no dog in this race, other than I was diagnosed for just about every thing OTHER than ADHD as a child from elementary school through high school and nothing worked. It wasn't until college that I was diagnosed with severe ADHD - Inattentive type and medication literally changed my life for the better.
Over the years I have read literally hundreds of studies and they seem to fall into two categories, studies that show ADHD medication to be effective with minimal side effects and those that label the medication as dangerous and are usually discredited at some later point. Most of the con artists who label the FDA medication as dangerous, usually seem to be selling their own mediation/method/snake oil/whatever as a cure, even though their "cure" has never been proven to be effective in the treatment of ADHD.
Point to fact, I came across the study below where school principals were frustrated that they needed to divert resources from actual issues, to the make believe issue of ADHD medication abuse.
"Most principals did not perceive the diversion or abuse of prescribed attention disorder drugs to be a major problem at their school. An estimated 89 percent reported that it was less of a problem than other illicit drug use, excluding alcohol and marijuana."
govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAO...
My question is this, the credible research seems to show ADHD medication is effective for many individuals with minimal side effects and it should be labeled/regulated as such. Second, why are people allowed to sell unproven methods to unsuspecting individuals? It just seems like our priorities are out of whack with the research/science.