AD(H)D Medications

It's conditional on their situation. For instance, assume that my life is picture-perfect. I have a great girlfriend, enough money to pay for school, all A's, my parents are happy, everything is great. Yet I'm still depressed. Anti-depressants should do wonders for me. No behavioral therapy is needed, as my life is already fine. However, if anti-depressants make me content with deplorable living conditions then they certainly have a negative effect. In this case, behavioral therapy along with anti-depressants would be optimum.

I think I made the analogy clear enough that you would know that I was talking about someone who has a shitty life and is depressed. I even specified at the end that I'm not saying depression (such as the type you described above) doesn't exist, I'm just saying a majority of the people who take anti-depressants don't have that type of depression.

I'm saying the same with ADHD medications. If there is such a thing as ADHD, it's not as common as ADHD medication use.

And no, I don't think medication is "harmless" in either situation. If someone takes anti-depressants to "fix" their shitty situation, they're just covering the underlying problem. To this you suggest, someone should take both anti-depressants and behavioral therapy. Why would they be motivated to take behavioral therapy if they feel their life is fine, even if it isn't?

Giving an unruly sugar rushing kid ritalin to make them behave is not fixing the problem. If they DO have ADHD, that's fine. If they DON'T have ADHD, it's NOT harmless, because it's not going to fix their problem. It will make it look fixed on the surface, but you've still got an unruly sugar rushing kid, they're just drugged. If that problem is not dealt with PROPERLY, it could affect their future.