What would you think if your child received advice to "tune in, turn on, and drop out"? Would you think it was Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the 'Merry Pranksters' Haight-Asbury Bay hippies era revisited?

What would you think if your child's attention span issues were being treated by well-intentioned district psychologists with a known hallucinogen from a mushroom called psilocybin?

Think again, because that's almost the case in many American schools, as the pharmacy kit-bag opens further with speculative treatment therapies for teen attention deficit disorder. Wide spread medication of American kids and adults is based on use of amphetamines and stimulants, which in recent clinical research are shown to mimic some of the hallucinogenic properties of mushroom psilocybin.

Over 6 million Americans each day receive behavior modifying medications like Ritalin for alleged attention deficit disorder. Perhaps no wider spreading trend, beyond over-budgeted and under-performing schools themselves, should cause parents to wonder than the medicating of teenagers in the pursuit of "normative standards".

Straight Talk On Attention Disorder In Young People. Asking whether teens have attention span issues is like asking whether the Pope is Catholic? Of course they do...but it's a matter of degree when comparing "Jody can't concentrate on her class work" to increasingly obtuse and theoretical concepts of the "normative standard" for teens.

Here's the current list of "usual suspect" symptoms to look for if you think your child may have attention deficit disorder. He'll be fidgety, squirmy, evidencing low concentration, bored, unable to complete assignments, forgets what was taught in class.

Psychiatric Meds - Anti Depression And Anti Anxiety... Once you "prime the pump" and commence use of neural-blockers you're playing in a complex arena. 4 million miles of nerve fibers are imbedded within your brain's neural architecture of over 10 billion cells. Is it any wonder that "psychiatric theory" comes unstuck in the "reality" of this complexity and the necessary uniqueness of each person?

Stimulants And Amphetamines - Major Chemical Interventions. Remarkably, a clinically observed "over-active" child showing alleged attention deficit hyperactivity disorder receives mood-altering powerful stimulants from the class known as methylphenidates under brand names including Ritalin and Concerta. Now to the stimulants add another potion from the class of legally approved amphetamines under labels such as Dexedrine or Adderall.

Ritalin Side Effects. It's true that 70% or more of the "standard population" will respond favorably to Ritalin for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. However, that leaves a "big chunk of statistical change" or 20% or more of the same medicated population that runs the risk of becoming seriously and psychiatrically unglued by the experience.

* Hyper-Nervous Jitters. Physical manifestations of Ritalin abuse can include profound states of agitation and "jittery feeling". Doctor's response? Take another intervention drug or beta blocker blood pressure med...so you now have two powerful drugs interacting.

* Irritability And Relapse Depression. As powerful attention disorder meds wear off, people can experience anger, irritability and a form of 'rebound' short-term depression. Solution? Other drugs may be prescribed such as serotonin or the class of alpha agonist medications.

* Stomach And Digestive Disorders And Headaches. It's a known fact that amphetamines and stimulants, including Ritalin, can cause appetite suppression. Solution? While avoiding Ritalin abuse, users may be asked to time their meds, in order to "wear off" just before meal times. Other Ritalin users experience stomach irritability that takes months to control, accordingly are instructed to "take your meds with your meals".

* Sleeping Disorder. "Short" and "long" acting stimulants remain neural-blockers, not matter which way you look at it. Not surprisingly, the chemically induced stated of "controlled stimulation" carries some unwanted baggage, such as sleeping disorders. Reduced meds may be a partial solution.

* Increased Blood Pressure And Blood Glucose. Borderline diabetics may trigger adult onset diabetes due to elevated blood glucose. Similarly, these stimulants and amphetamines meds stimulate all sorts of metabolic activity, including blood pressure.

* Nervous Tics Exacerbated. If a patient normally exhibits the sort of patterned nervousness and "tics", then these drugs will amplify these tics as well as the underlying attention span disorder complex.

Non Pharmaceutical Alternatives. Fortunately, families can now turn back into time, and begin selective use of various herbs like St. Thomas Wort, nature's valium, rosemary, ginseng, centella asiatica as well as to an evolving class of exercise and visual programming aids that allegedly can actually train the ADD-HD person to create new neural pathways (think brain right and left hemispheres) to adjust for certain imbalances