"Just Say No to drugs! By the way, here's your Ritalin."

One day early in 2000, Michael and Jill Carroll of West Byrne, New York, got a knock on their door from Child Protective Services. Their alleged crime wasn't abusing drugs, beating their child or withholding love. Rather, they were accused of refusing to give their 7-year-old son, Kyle, the popular-yet-controversial drug, Ritalin.

As a result, the Times Union of Albany reports, the Carrolls were put on a statewide list of alleged child abusers and thrust into an Orwellian court battle to clear their name and to make sure that Kyle wasn't forcibly removed from their home.

In fact, Ritalin may be the epitome of a quick-fix solution for a fast-food culture.

Diller, a San Francisco Bay-area pediatrician, has prescribed Ritalin to his patients for the last two decades. But he has become increasingly concerned by the explosive growth in Ritalin prescriptions in the past decade. He argues that it is ironic that public school administrators, on the one hand, enthusiastically push a "Just Say No!" position on drug use, while at the same time telling youngsters to "Medicate or Else!"

Other doctors agree.

"I know of children who have been given Ritalin more to subdue them than to meet their needs Ð a practice that recalls the opium syrups used to soothe noisy infants in London a century ago," says Bromfield.

"The surge in both ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions is yet another sign of a society suffering from a colossal lack of personal responsibility," he adds. "By telling patients that their failures, misbehavior and unhappiness are caused by a disorder, we risk colluding with their all-too-human belief that their actions are beyond their control and weaken their motivation to change on their own. And in the many cases where ADHD is misdiagnosed in children, we give parents the illusion that their child's problems have nothing to do with the home environment or with their performance as parents."