"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
A total distortion of the man's point. Imagine someone suffering from an unknown ailment for years. One day, he is finally diagnosed, a treatment is given, and he feels better.
All you can do is try to argue that he shouldn't be treated.
I think the problem here is in making the "diagnosis" the all-singing all-dancing point around which everything else revolves. If we have safe and effective medications which increase alertness in the school and in the workplace, why shouldn't everyone be able to take them in small doses as the need arises? We only need to invent a "syndrome" or a "disorder" around such things because we make such an enormous distinction between "medicines", which are good, and "drugs", which are bad. Inventing mythological ailments and "politicizing dissent" has other disadvantages as well. Little Johnny's perfectly valid criticisms of the local NEA stormtrooper can be easily dismissed by an explanation that Johnny has "Authority Defiance Disorder", or some other convenient thing that permits Johnny to be tranked senseless whenever he might say something awkward in public. This has close ties to the way those in authority, and their minions, regularly diagnose people like us with labels like "anti-government" as in "The anti-Government Freemen", "The anti-Government Militias", or "The anti-Government Crypto-Anarchists."
Did you listen to that guy at all? He was in pain and anguish over the fact that his life was totally screwed up in spite of his best efforts to make a go at work he loved. Now he can function. You want him to be "diverse" and go on not functioning. He doesn't want that. Who are you to tell him how live his own life?
The human body is a homeostatic system. Let's see what this guy's mood looks like in 30 years and see how he feels about Ritalin taking then. By that time, he may be taking the same dose he is today just to feel as rotten as he did before he started taking it at all. Not uncommon at all in the "drugs help me function" crowd. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $