100
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             H.R. NO.              
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2000                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                     HOUSE  RESOLUTION
  REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO EXAMINE THE USE OF
    PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS BY CHILDREN FIVE TO EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD
    AND RELATED INCIDENTS OF VIOLENCE AND BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS
    IN SCHOOLS.


 1        WHEREAS, psychiatric drugs are prescribed to between five
 2   million and six million children each year--about ten per cent
 3   of the school-age population nationwide; and
 4   
 5        WHEREAS, Ritalin, perhaps the most common of these drugs,
 6   currently is administered to more than 2,500,000 Americans,
 7   including more than one in every thirty children between the
 8   ages of five and eighteen; and
 9   
10        WHEREAS, the International Narcotics Control Board of the
11   World Health Organization has warned about our nation's trend
12   of overusing stimulants for children, and according to that
13   organization, the United States uses ninety per cent of the
14   world's Ritalin; and
15   
16        WHEREAS, Ritalin is a schedule II drug under the
17   Controlled Substance Act, in the same category as opium,
18   morphine, and cocaine; and
19   
20        WHEREAS, it has been suggested that recent incidents of
21   school violence and other occasions of violence are the result
22   of children being unnecessarily medicated by such drugs; now,
23   therefore,
24   
25        BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the
26   Twentieth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session
27   of 2000, that the Department of Health is requested to examine
28   the extent of use of psychiatric drugs and their effects on
29   children in this State to determine how widespread is the use
30   of psychiatric drugs in general and Ritalin in particular, in
31   children aged five to eighteen and the relationship of the use
32   of these drugs to the incidence of violence or other behavioral
33   problems in the classrooms; and
34   
35        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Director of Health, after
36   consultation with the Superintendent of Education, is requested
37   to report findings and recommendations to the Legislature
38   twenty days before the convening of the Regular Session of
39   2001; and

 
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                                  H.R. NO.              
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1   
 2        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this
 3   Resolution be transmitted to the Director of Health and the
 4   Superintendent of Education.
 5   
 6 
 7 
 8 
 9                         OFFERED BY:  ____________________________