My elementary school refused to let me go to school unless I took meth-in-a-pill, can I sue for that?

Published May 20, 2010

Now, before everyone goes “OMG horrible WTF?!?” on me, allow me to explain. It was October 1998, I was in the beginning of first grade and I had just moved into a big city (well, as far as Oregon goes) from the country. Back in the country, we’d always have these hands-on projects, so when we started elementary school and the teacher (she was young and had just started teaching the previous year) just stood up there and talked, I got bored and my attention wandered elsewhere. A few weeks later, my teacher got so fed up with me that at the parent teacher conferences, she brought the principal, who promptly told my poor mother that I could not come back to school unless my attention problem was resolved. They told my mom to ask about a drug called Ritalin, which was supposed to make you focus more. They even took the liberty of referring her to a doctor who treated these “problem kids” with Ritaln with successful results. Mom agreed.

That was the start of a twice-a-day, 350mg prescription of Ritalin for nearly four years, from October 1998 until the middle of my fifth-grade year in 2003, when my dad (divorced from my mother) actually got a judge to issue a court order to stop the presciptions. I now know why. I would get really irritable when I didn’t get my twice-daily pill (for example, at Dad’s house, where he refused to give it to me, saying ‘it was for my own good’.), and go into fits of rage over not getting it. I was like a drug junkie. It was horrible.

A few months after the court order was issued, I completely was over the drug (withdrawal sucked, however), and I never did understand why I was taken off of it. Then, I recently learned Ritalin was, in a nutshell, “meth in a pill”. And I believe it’s affected my health greatly: while I was on it, I always was gasping for air after any sort of exercise, I had mood swings, and I believe it may have even stunted my growth. (I am relatively short for my family; I just barely break six foot, while most of the males in my family clear 6’4 easily). My life got messed up because the school district bullied my mother into giving me a low-dose form of meth. Would that be enough grounds to sue upon?
Girzie: I call bull. Did you have to take it as a kid? Would you feel safe giving it to your kids? That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?
Julia: If it’s bad enough to have a judge issue a court order to terminate my prescription, I highly doubt it’d be considered frivolous.

My elementary school refused to let me go to school unless I took meth-in-a-pill, can I sue for that?

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