Allow me to introduce Dexamphetamine, Ritalin, Prozac, Valium and Viagra ­ Stars of the new pharmacological world order. Forget the attention starved kids, the nanny can dish out more dexis for there's work to be done, the wife's out on anti-depressants and your secretary/mistress no longer complains about ­ well, you know - thanks to those wonderful blue v's. Western society now has a solution for almost every physical or psychological ailment, and it very rarely involves addressing the probably difficult and complex sources.

This "Rodger Ramjet" mentality has seen the global production of methphenidate or Ritalin increase from less than 3 tonnes in 1990 to 8.5 tonnes (remember, 1 tonne = 1,000,000,000mg) in 1994 with a consumption pattern steeped heavily towards the USA for the treatment of ADHD. Australia follows close behind and we can assume similar trends for the production of dexamphetamine. Is it right to continue such a widespread prescription of these powerful, mood altering drugs?

The battlelines of the "War on Drugs" must be redrawn continuously since the drugs now administered to children act analogously to "hard drugs" like ecstasy and speed. Can we get something for nothing? Can we, like idealized electrons excited externally from low to higher states of consciousness, ping ourselves at will into a mental state of our design? It would seem so. And where will it end? Electrons never tire, but if hit hard enough they will depart the mathematically comfortable vicinity of their atom. So how does this affect the way that we feel, or rather, the way that we make ourselves feel?

Most of us will pop a pill with little/no deep thought. Headache? Panadol. To most of us the institute of caffeine and Sudafed has become codified in "How to Pass Exams when you did No Work all Semester" text (out of print). Sudafed clears a runny nose when used correctly, but larger doses reveal the tiger by its claw: increased blood pressure and heart rate, bronchial dilation, dilated pupils, increased alertness and loss of appetite.

The pseudoephedrine contained in many "non-drowsy" drugs like these is really an amphetamine in disguise, differing from methamphetamine by only one oxygen atom, a proton and a symmetry operation. These differences are sufficient, however, for the stimulant effects to be hindered by the passage of pseudoephedrine molecules across the blood-brain membrane, plus orders of magnitude difference in its activity where it counts ­ the dopamine neurons.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and together with serotonin controls how we feel. Subtle variations in the relative amounts (around 20mg total) of neurotransmitters present in our body control factors as diverse as mood, sleep, sexual and hallucinogenic behaviour, appetite, learning and have been implicated as causal factors of migraines and Parkinson's disease. Amphetamines act as dopamine agonists, releasing dopamine whilst blocking its re-uptake. In a developed body (eg. mine), this accounts for the stimulant effects but to the undeveloped and ADHD body (ie. the children) the effect is quite the opposite. They effectively reverse the antisocial hyperactive behavior and give a marked improvement in concentration.

Numerous cultures have for centuries exploited the stimulating properties of native plants, coca or khat for example, for the improved endurance they endow. Cocaine operates almost identically to amphetamines but doesn't bind to the receptors, decreasing the duration of the effects. Cocaine was originally an important ingredient of Coca-Cola (60mg per serve until 1903) and given that it has the highest self-reward potential of any drug, it is easy to see why coke is (was) it.

Cocaine was ultimately banned, but science soon found a way to mimic nature when amphetamine was synthesized in the 1940's. We know D or dextro amphetamine as dexamphetamine, or Benzedrine. Early on it made a useful addition to the morphine in a soldier's pack and had a variety of other uses, but servicemen had become strangely attached to amphetamine nasal sprays. Benzedrine was finally restricted to prescription after 1971 following widespread abuse by women fighting obesity.

But back to the hyperactive year nines who now sell their medication to friends and older siblings. Recent research has found that the ADHD brain typically contains higher levels of dopamine and depletion of serotonin, thus it is hard to see how dopamine agonists like dexamphetamine might help. Indeed, Ritalin (yet another drug) acts more as a serotonin agonist, restoring its equilibria with dopamine to socially acceptable levels. Serotonin agonists cover a wide spectrum of drugs, from antidepressants and antipsychotics like prozac to hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, mescalin and MDMA. In fact MDMA is thought to act serotagenically as well as dopaminogenically but has little utility for improving concentration. Ritalin and dexamphetamine give sparkling improvements with few side effects to ADHD sufferers, estimated at around 3-10% of all children with perhaps 50% of sufferers requiring treatment as adults. It is presumed that passing through adolescence can be enough to balance serotonin and dopamine levels to allow an independence from the drugs.

Despite the apparent efficacy of ADHD treatment programs, the patterns of diagnosis are suspicious - confined to First World economies with America and Canada leading. The condition is 50 times less common in Europe than in America and it has been speculated that children raised by TV, the internet and computer games have a sensory addiction which is unsatisfied in environments like school, leading to disruptive behaviour. Perhaps the ability to use drugs to treat this is a benefit of our rapidly evolving society and it doesn't contradict the other end of the mass prescription scale, valium and prozac. Scientific knowledge of neurochemical processes gives us power over them, power over the brightness, contrast, resonance and cutoff of our reality.

The origins of ADHD are complex but, by and large, the mass prescription of amphetamines is doing wonders by allowing a small minority of society to interact better with the world. Yet, while we may know how so called molecules interact with alleged receptors and can draw sensible observations on their effects, there are too many boundary situations that remain unexplained. Pills tend to work well, sometimes even when they have nothing in them. We like being medicated and like to believe that one pill can change our life, if only for a short time. Even if it is only aspirin.

James Hos