Parents may face jail over compulsory drug orders

Parents of children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) will face jail under proposals in the new Mental Health Bill if they refuse to drug their children, a psychiatrist has warned.

Dr Bob Johnson, who is at the forefront of a campaign against the increasing reliance on drugs to treat hyperactive children, said the wide-ranging powers of the Bill would over-rule the wishes of parents.

"The Bill is so punitive it dispenses with all civil and human rights. Parents who have reservations about pumping their children full of drugs to control them would be classed as denying their children treatment," he said. "It's only a matter of time before parents find themselves in breach of such orders which are fully backed by the courts."

Dr Johnson, a clinical psychiatrist for 40 years, said the huge rise in the use of drugs was worrying. The number of prescriptions of the most popular ADHD drug, Ritalin, stood at 208,000 last year, up from just 2,000 a decade earlier.

Some parents say they have little choice but to use drugs for their children. Andrea Bilbow, who runs the Attention Deficit Disorder Information and Support Service (Addiss), has given her 15-year-old son Ritalin for nearly a decade. "If there was another way I would take it, but at the moment it's the only treatment which gives him any quality of life," she said.

The Department of Health dismissed claims that new legislation would lead to parents being jailed, but admitted the proposals would extend compulsory treatment orders.