14 DAY TRIAL // A woman has given her son ADHD medication without a prescription. She describes that she has given him Adderall “as an experiment.”
The mother lives in West Boca, Florida, the Sun Sentinel writes. The woman suffers from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and she has tricked her son into taking some of her medication.
She did not take her son to a doctor, but giving out a diagnosis herself, she wrote down the child's problems with hyperactivity and difficulty paying attention to ADHD.
The boy is just six years old. The stunt has gotten 39-year-old mom Heather McAuliffe arrested.
“The medicine, which is a central nervous system stimulant combining amphetamine and dextroamphetamine, comes with a long list of side effects and may cause slow growth in children,” the Daily Mail describes.
According to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office arrest report, she contacted the boy's teacher after sending him off to school on Wednesday.
“I tried something today,” she texted the teacher.
“I gave (son’s name) 5 MG (1.8 OZ) of my Adderall just to see if there is a noticeable difference. He does not know because i crushed it up in his yogurt,” she wrote.
The teacher alerted authorities and McAuliffe was arrested on child abuse charges. She was detained and booked into Palm Beach County Jail, making $3,000 (€2,200) bail for her release.
Palm Beach County School District spokesman, Owen Torres, agrees with the teacher's decision, as any sign of abuse has to be reported, by law.
“I don't know what the circumstances are, but if the kid was not prescribed this, obviously the teacher had a right to notify proper authorities to do an investigation,” Torres says.
The teacher “did the right thing” in calling the police right away, he adds.