[ryandrake]

Another thing that's becoming more and more an issue as more young people get diagnosed, is that the FAA considers ADHD and other attention-deficit conditions to be disqualifying as well. If you're taking medication for ADHD or similar conditions and want to be a pilot, you're dead in the water until you get off them and can show that you don't have some kind of attention difficulty.

[quercusa]

The military treats ADHD the same way and won't take anyone who's used meds for it in the past year. That's the official line, anyway.

In reality, recruiters tell candidates to lie about the meds ("everybody does it") and to stay off them long enough to pass the urine test.

[curryst]

That's interesting. I wonder if that makes people with ADHD ineligible for the draft? I wouldn't be mad about that. I'm also kind of curious about their reasoning. Is it fear that they won't be able to keep a steady supply of medication all the time (i.e. delivering Adderal to the front lines might not be easy), and that people with ADHD become a liability without it? Amphetamines seemed fairly successful for the Nazis during the invasion of France, although the rate that they gave them out at ended in massive addiction. The optics on doing something similar to Nazis is pretty bad, though.

[quercusa]

That seems to be the story, but the second half of the game, as per the recruiter, is that once in, you can go to the military doctor and 'realize' that you seem to have a bit of ADHD to get a prescription for the very same meds: "I think Concerta XR 27mg might be what I need".

[redis_mlc]

1) If you're normal-weighted and can do the pushups, the recruiter will do a lot of effort on your behalf.

2) Because military recruiters are under tremendous pressure to get enlistments. They can be court-martialled if they miss quota.

[quercusa]

My son was very turned off by being told "It's OK to lie about this to get in; everybody knows it's how the game is played."