From Ritalin to Cocaine - Steve Howe's Untold Story - By FRED GARDNER
Howe grew up in Pontiac, Michigan and his social group was "pretty tough guys." He told me he didn't do drugs or alcohol as a teenager, although all his friends did. He laid off because he thought pot might take the edge off his athletic skills (he knew he was great) and alcohol reminded him of his dad, whom he did not admire.
He first did coke one night in New York City after pitching against the Mets. A woman offered him a hit and thought it might be okay for him because "it reminded me of all the Ritalin I'd done as a kid. I said, "But you just said you didn't do drugs or alcohol as a kid." He repeated that he hadn't. Ritalin, in his view, was "medication" because it had been administered by a school nurse and prescribed by a physician!
Ritalin is the brand name for methylphenidate HCl, a form of speed designed by chemists to be just different enough from amphetamine for exclusive licensing by Ciba-Geigy, the drug company now known as Novartis.
Ritalin use had flattened in the late 1970s after Peter Schrag and Diane Divoky published their brilliant expose, The Myth of the Hyperactive Child; but by the mid-1980s it was being pushed successfully in the schools, its use justified by a pharmacological falsehood, i.e., that it had a "paradoxical effect" on the young, calming them down.
In fact Ritalin has the classic effect of speed --riveting one's attention on whatever is directly in front of one's face, and causing all the expected side-effects, such as sleeplessness, loss of appetite and increasing jitters as it wears off.
Of course, there is more to the story are the weblink above.
Steve Howe was a promising young reliever when he broke in with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1980. But although he had the presence and poise to become a star in the bigs, his quick success with the Dodgers was tempered by his even quicker spiral into the world of substance abuse. Howe ended up battling his inner demons as much as opposing batters, and at the end of his career, his most impressive statistic was his record-number of drug-related suspensions (seven).
Steve Howe died at age 48 on April 28, 2006 when his pickup truck rolled over in Coachella, California. There have been no official toxicology statements at this time.
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