112
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             H.C.R. NO.            
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2000                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________


                     HOUSE  CONCURRENT
                        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, the senate concurring, that the Department of Health
28   is requested to examine the extent of use of psychiatric drugs
29   and their effects on children in this State to determine how
30   widespread is the use of psychiatric drugs in general and
31   Ritalin in particular, in children aged five to eighteen and
32   the relationship of the use of these drugs to the incidence of
33   violence or other behavioral 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

 
Page 2                                                     112
                                  H.C.R. NO.            
                                                        
                                                        

 1   twenty days before the convening of the Regular Session of
 2   2001; and
 3   
 4        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this
 5   Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Director of Health
 6   and the  Superintendent of Education.
 7   
 8 
 9 
10 
11                         OFFERED BY:  ____________________________