This is a debate that has been raging for years - does the use of stimulant medication to treat ADHD, such as Ritalin, increase the likelihood of later drug use?
If you read the material from the Church of Scientology, and their friends, the answer will be "absolutely - yes!" But if you read material from researchers and psychologists, the answer will be "probably not."
Our experience has been that, no, the use of stimulant medication such as Ritalin does not increase the chances of a child becoming a teenager who will abuse drugs.
But here's a real life story to illustrate how opinions are often formed on the question. It begins with my being in a classroom at Cal State Bakersfield where I was giving a lecture on ADHD to a class of future educators.
At the conclusion of my lecture, including a discussion on Ritalin, a hand was raised by one of our future classroom teachers. She stated, out loud for all to hear, that her brother was now in prison because of his Ritalin treatment for ADHD. She stated that having used Ritalin had turned him into a drug addict and criminal.
I asked the obvious clarifying questions, such as "how did that happen?" She replied that her brother had be prescribed Ritalin from the age of 9 until the age of 13. Then at the age of 13, because he had reached adolescence, his doctor believed (wrongly) that he no longer required medication and discontinued treatment. Then at the age of 15, two years after having discontinued treatment for ADHD, her brother began smoking, getting into trouble, and using drugs.
And now, at the age of 18, her brother was in prison. And in her opinion it was all the fault of a medication that was discontinued five years before his arrest, and two years before his drug career began.
When I pointed out that perhaps it was not the fault of the Ritalin (since he had discontinued it two years before beginning to get into trouble), and that perhaps the treatment of his ADHD might have been more successful, for more years, if he had continued using stimulants, she just muttered something about my being an idiot. Because in her mind, her brother's trouble could not be her brother's responsibility, but had to be the fault of something outside of her brother's control - such as evil doctors and evil Ritalin.
Score 1 for opinion, score 0 for logic.
Finally, I'm not here to defend Ritalin. It has lots of potential problems and side-effects. I'd much rather see people use Attend and Extress, and our ADHD Diet. But the research has strongly indicated for years that treatment with stimulant medication does not increase the risks of future drug use in teenagers. However the facts are that un-treated ADHD does increase the risks of future drug use.