Jim (23) warns young people about ‘ritalin craze’: “Addiction destroys your life”

On the phone, Jim Berkhof from Alkmaar proudly says that he has been clean from hard drugs for almost 2 years now. In his past he has also taken a pill of Ritalin. Although he has never been addicted to this drug himself, he is concerned about the incorrect use of this drug. Especially because it is so easy to get.

“I’m no longer in that world since I got clean, but I saw around me at the time that it was being used for other purposes,” says Jim. “For example, I had a friend who sometimes had it with her. That quickly made the threshold very low to do it.”

The pills are not only easy to obtain within social circles. It is also a breeze to get your hands on this drug online. That is confirmed by research of the program Checkout (BNNVARA). They did a random check at five online shops, where they managed to obtain Ritalin and similar designer drugs. While use without a doctor’s prescription can lead to side effects and addiction.

‘That won’t happen to me’

“If you don’t need it, it actually works like speed,” says Jim about his experience with the drug. That is precisely what makes use without a doctor’s prescription so attractive to the people who use it. This way they can last longer on a night out.

According to Jim, people recognize the risks, but they simply don’t think about them that much. “You are either addictive or you are not. People often think: oh, that doesn’t happen to me, I’m not like that. That’s what I thought about myself when I smoked and snorted cannabis for the first time.” But that first time is enough to put you at risk for addiction.

With his TikTok account he tries to help other young people by sharing his story. We previously wrote about his motivation to share his experiences. In the video below he explains how he discovered that it was really an addiction.

Jim himself has never purchased resources through web shops. “We always had a dealer that you just called,” he says, laughing. “But it doesn’t really surprise me that (synthetic) Ritalin is easy to get online,” said the TikTokker.

Because according to him, the legislation is also part of the problem. “They always lag behind the industry. It develops much faster than implementing such a law.”

An example of this is the drug ‘4F-Methylphenidate’. That is a synthetic variant of Ritalin. Technically this ‘may’ be sold because it is not yet included in the Opium Act.

“Drug manufacturers play the game very cleverly. As soon as a designer drug is included in the law, they adjust the composition by one molecule. If the law is then updated again, the cycle starts again,” says Jim. “The original is therefore increasingly difficult to obtain, which means that users quickly switch to the new variant. Unfortunately, the barrier to continued use remains low,” he says.

‘It ruins your life’

Jim would like to urge his followers and other young people to think twice about using substances. “I am really the first to say that addiction will destroy your life. You don’t want that,” he warns. “If you are going to use something, read it carefully and be aware of the risks involved,” says the expert.