Australia: Overdose students took ADD drug

Queensland police are investigating a mass drug overdose by 14 students at Narangba Valley State High School, north of Brisbane.

Ten girls and four boys from year nine took an overdose of Ritalin during their lunchbreak.

Ritalin is the drug used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

Witnesses say some of the students took as many as 15 tablets.

Students say one of the girls had brought the tablets from home.

"Someone's mum had them, she brought them to school," one student said.

Teachers were alerted to the problem when the group began suffering severe side-effects and concerns were raised when two affected students went missing for a short time.

"I saw my mate, he was shaking his left arm, went a bit numb, he started crying," one student said.

Rob McAlpine, from Education Queensland, says school authorities acted swiftly.

"Queensland Ambulance was called, students were transported to the Caboolture Hospital," he said.

Most of the students have since been discharged from hospital but police are still investigating where the drugs came from.

Drug education officer Mark Brown says he has not seen anything on this scale.

"The number of people who actually use drugs within the school environment is normally very, very small, so to have a situation like this where young people are using a prescribed medication, say 15 young people, is most unusual," he said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Thurs, 30 March 2006
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia Web)
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