Better learning through chemistry.
Yup. IT's easier to treat the kids than change the schools so hyperactive boys can learn without sitting for hours on end.
However, in a small percentage of children, there is such a thing as ADD, and these stimulents help. I have seen many children with Fetal Alcohol syndrome where a small dose of stimulents calmed them enough to stay in regular classes, and that calmed them enough that their elderly grandmothers or aunts could care for them (usually kids taken from mom who was an alcoholic) rather than putting them in a non realted foster home.
There is a difference between use (which help severe problems to cope) and misuse (where drugs manipulate normal people to be perfect).
Use of stimulants in war is a borderline case. But there is a rumor that they were using both "uppies" and "downies" to allow the bombing of Afghanistan. This is dangerous.