This article might have been more interesting had it been about what the title actually implied (i.e., the apparent tendency to pathologise events or experiences that used to be considered a "normal" part of life. For example, is menarche really a "syndrome" that needs to be "treated" with prescriptions? is there something ethnocentric about how we diagnose and treat illness? etc. - please note here that I am not suggesting that PMS or ADHD is not a valid diagnosis, but rather that there is room for debate about the fluid and shifting classifications of the DSM and the cosy relationship between pharmaceutical companies and medical practitioners).

Instead, however, we get the author's somewhat solipsistic, and very particular, experience of selling Ritalin. What does this tell me about prescription drugs in American culture? Nothing. It tells me that a dumb teenager managed to luck into some Ritalin (of which he was too naive at first to recognise the street value of) and then managed to capitalise on a ready and willing market that has always existed (if not Ritalin, then something else). Added to that, he presents the most tenuous of evidence as proof of ADHD medication addiction by stating that there has been a rise in the number of sleeping pills prescribed to teens. Is there a direct correlation because you imply there is? Has anyone actually done any research examining whether or not teens who are taking sleeping pills are also taking Ritalin? "Most popular theory" aside, I don't know the answer to that, but I would certainly expect the author of an article to at least do a google search and check.

While I certainly don't disagree with everything that's stated in the article - and there are some interesting points made - the article would have been much more persuasive if the author had focused on proving some of those points rather than delving into the anecdotal and writing something that comes off as rather light and dismissive.

Obviously the author has never experienced REAL ADD problems which screw up your whole life and are not just little inconveniences. And try having a panic attack..... a really scary and horrible experience. I think Mr Amsden is being too flippant.

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I think the fact that Mr. Amsden refers to ADHD as "attention DEFICIENT hyperactivity disorder" when the real name of the disorder is attention DEFICIT hyperactivity disorder" shows the level of research that went into this piece. It may be a small error, but if you can't even get the name of the disorder right, then chances are you're not very well-versed in the subject matter. (Also, for clarity, the proper shorthand is ADHD, not ADD).

As a child psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety disorders, I can say with certainty that these supposed "watered down" disorders are very real and can be very disabling to the children and teens who experience them. Please note that I am a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. I cannot prescribe medications, do not profit in any way from such prescriptions, and can be in no way thought of as "in the pocket" of pharmaceutical companies. One might even say that it would be a boon for me if parents chose to stop putting their children on medication, because it would increase the need for the cognitive-behavioral therapy that I provide. Yet often I find myself suggesting that parents bring their child for a psychiatric consultation in addition to therapy. Because for many people medication offers real relief. Not the escapist sensation of getting high, but relief from the real pain of real disorders.

Medication is not for everyone -- and I do agree that there has been some overpathologizing and overmedicating of both children and adults in recent years. But the fact that it was not recognized in the past does not mean that it does not exist now. Also, to equate occasional overdiagnosis with the lack of real disorder is to throw out not just the proverbial baby but indeed the entire family with the bathwater.

One final note -- an increase in stimulant prescriptions and an increase in sedative prescriptions simply means in increase in prescriptions of medications in children. You may want to have some numbers that state how many of those children are being prescribed both before you make assumptions that we are creating an entire generation of baby Elvises.

While there remain disagreements among the respondents to this article, common themes emerge.

It seems that like a Phil Dick novel, the underlying themes have power, but the execution is, well, flawed. There are plenty of statements of fact in the article that are just plain wrong. That and I think the author told us enough about his own stuff to creep much of the audience out.

But the points he makes, not to mention the points he could be making are extremely timely and important in this culture. This article, flawed as it is, it merely the tip of a massive iceberg. We need more open debate on the schism he's outlining that we all have to live with to some degree or antoher.

I hope that this article is just the beginning.

And to Dr. Le Veilleux: My name is Meacham, not Beecham. Sir Thomas Beecham was a symphony conductor.

Amsden's article shouldn't be taken seriously, because it's short on critical thought. Mostly Amsden's voice as a 15 year-old Beavis tempered with the tranquility of the recollections of a jaded twenty-something stand out more so than his open-ended conclusions. But there is in the piece plenty of rumination on the paradoxical dualisms that keep America on its fancy toes, to a sufficient extent that the reader can't rule out that there is some interaction between rampant consumerism and information bombardment and their subsequent superstimulation of the mind and body with the culture of anxiety and attention deficit. Compare statistics of such diagnoses with our neighbors in other countries. (Forgive my poor research not providing any)

But because he wrote about medications and mental conditions, a lot of people took him personally. Sure, there could have been better research and fewer opinions about mental health, but damn all you Salon readers for expecting peer-reviewed science writing! The article was about the cultural environment that produces and defines these mental conditions. Not about their validity as scientific diagnoses directly. For that, Bravo, Amsden.

The question about the so called moralistic dimension of prohibiting certain drugs is really an element of the necessity for a capitalistic government to control anything that is profitable, like marijuana, and if it cannot be controlled, and a select few elite businesses cannot be designated to produce it for consumption by the masses, then it is prohibited, and justified as such on the basis of nebulous morals, which the government and the select few elite businesses realize are the most effective way to shape the masses's beliefs without making an effort to persuade them. Contrast with the select few business elite that produce pharmaceuticals, energy, and every left foot left of New Madrid, Missouri.

As a bi-polar in my first half decade of diagnosis and my third decade of life at twice thirteen and half fity-two, I can testify to the following: anti-cunvulsants, the shit that removes potassium ions from between your neurons, thereby slowing the flow of electricity, they work. And lithium, the old stand-by, that makes your piss smell weird and rings the ears, it works too.

I've had the diagnosis for a few years and wore it like a badge of honor or something, but didn't always take my medication. I took the anti-convulsants for several months and stopped: Whoops. Spent some time in jail. Bought a handgun that I never bought bullets for. Went to the racetrack every day for a month (and actually came out on top) . Thrown into rehab. On lithium, and batting .459 since.

So. My thesis: do what works. Find a good doctor and tell everyone else to suck an egg, but suck it up when life deals you lemons and says 'how you like them apples?'