Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs found spending for mental health care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.
On April 22, 2009, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that in 2006 more money was …

A White Paper by Citizens Commission on Human Rights
DRUG USAGE STATISTICS
Thomas Moore, author of Prescriptions for Disaster said that the current use of drugs like Ritalin is
taking “appalling risks” with a generation of kids. The drug is given, he said, for “short-term control
of behavior—not to reduce any identifiable hazard to [children’s] health. Such large-scale chemical
control of human behavior has not been previously undertaken in our society outside of nursing homes and mental institutions.”1
More than 8.5 million American children are prescribed powerful stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs for so-called educational …

• Higher doses and longer term use of psychiatric drugs often mean brain changes