Student Adderall abuse associated with need to study

Photo+Illustration+by+Beck+Diefenbach%0A

Photo Illustration by Beck Diefenbach

By Lisa Xia

Holly Donovan began stealing her sisters’ Adderall her sophomore year of high school.

Her sisters Kyla, then 14, and Amanda, then 18, were both prescribed the medication to treat their Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.

Donovan, now a 21-year-old freshman at Arizona State University, recalled that Kyla often refused to take her medication, stashing her Adderall into a sock she hid in her bureau. Donovan would search for the hidden sock to take a pill or two when she needed it.

When she did not take pills from Kyla, Donovan went for Amanda’s Adderall capsules, emptying their contents for herself and replacing the empty capsules with powder from diet pills.

Although she felt guilty about stealing her sisters’ medication, Donovan said she took them to handle the mounting pressures of school work, track team and family responsibilities.

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“I didn’t have a whole lot of time, so I figured less sleep was the way to go,” said Donovan, who believes the drug is much more effective than caffeine or other legal stimulants. “Caffeine just keeps you awake; Adderall will keep you mentally alert and focused while keeping you awake.”

Donovan’s abuse of Adderall reflects the large number of high school and college-aged students turning to stimulant prescription drugs to help them stay up longer and concentrate, despite the potentially fatal health risks and disciplinary consequences.

Last year, it was found that 10 percent of 17-25-year-olds nationwide had used prescription amphetamines for non-medical reasons, according to a survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Despite the large number of students who admit to abusing Adderall, it remains difficult to detect and control.

Adderall, a pharmaceutical stimulant amphetamine that came out in the 1970s, is the most popular medication used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. Prescribed to 21.8 million Americans in 2005, it is among the most abused prescription medications, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s study.

Adderall is classified by the FDA as a Schedule II Controlled Substance, placing it in the same category of drugs as cocaine and methamphetamine – a group that is classified by high abuse potential and a high rate of psychological and physical dependence.

Using Adderall as a study aid is the most common motivation for abuse among University students, said Ilene Harned, counselor at the Alcohol and Other Drug Office at McKinley Health Center.

Kim, a junior in Business who asked that her last name not be revealed due to the nature of the article, said she started using the drug her freshman year in college.

“I didn’t know how to study for a test, so I took it to stay up all night,” Kim said. “All my friends do (Adderall), minus three or four people. Everyone’s doing it to study.”

This type of behavior worries Harned because when students begin relying on the drug, they can develop a psychological dependency in which they lose faith in their ability to succeed without Adderall.

“They feel like they need it,” Harned said. “Maybe they’ve decided ‘I can’t stay up and study without this.'”

Donovan found herself in this dependent mentality her senior year of high school.

“It was definitely a mental addiction: I just felt I needed it,” Donovan said. “It got to a point where I couldn’t do anything without it. I wouldn’t even clean my room without it.”

Addiction and common side effects like a loss of appetite, insomnia, euphoria and tremors can cause both long and short term problems.

Consequences can be dire even from using the drug several times a year, a practice commonly followed by students like Kim, who has only used the medication six times in the last three years.

Recently, Adderall was temporarily banned in Canada because it played part in the heart-attack deaths of several children who had pre-existing abnormal heart problems.

Although death from Adderall is an extremely rare consequence in healthy adults, the problem, Harned said, is that most students who are not prescribed the drug do not go through tests and screening. This prevents them from knowing about a heart condition that would make taking Adderall deadly.

Another hazard is that these students may be unaware that other medications they may be on, such as antidepressants, are dangerous to mix with Adderall. These risks are not enough to deter students like Kim, who does not view her Adderall use as a problem or an abuse.

“Drug abuse is when you take things overboard,” Kim said. “When you can’t get other stuff done because you’re too busy doing drugs – that’s drug abuse, not taking Adderall to study.”

This belief, Harned said, is troubling because it is coupled with students’ beliefs that prescribed Adderall cannot cause the same side-effects as cocaine and other unregulated amphetamines in the same FDA controlled-substance class.

Kim, for example, believes Adderall is “absolutely safe” although she later added that she did not know its side effects.

“The minute you say prescriptions, most people think ‘safe’ or ‘it’s OK,’ or well, ‘he’s taking it, so it’s OK for me to take it,'” Harned said.

Because it is regulated, Adderall’s purity can be ensured, unlike its street-drug counterparts.

Considering individual factors and medical conditions, though, safety is never certain.

Despite the high frequency of usage, Adderall is an elusive drug for school officials to detect because, unlike cocaine or marijuana, the drug originates from a legal source and dealing is small-scale and private, said Brian Farber, acting director of the Office for Student Conflict Resolution. According to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 80 percent of all Adderall abusers get their pills from friends or relatives.

Steve Kriz, a student at John Marshall Law School in Chicago who was prescribed the drug to treat his ADHD in January 2006, said that he is often asked by fellow classmates for his medication. Although he refuses to sell them for the market price of $5 a pill, Kriz will occasionally give out one or two to a friend who needs one for free.

“There is a feeling of invincibility. They think, ‘I can do this, and I won’t get caught’, and the reality is that it’s not a terrible assumption,” said Farber, whose office has only seen three Adderall cases in the past few years.

The University police has had similarly low incidences of Adderall-related cases, said Lt. V.G. “Skip” Frost, who cited fewer than 20 incidences in the last five years that involved the medication.

“It’s extremely rare,” Frost said. “You hear about Adderall running rampant, but when people take it, it’s not for the same purpose (as other drugs). They take it to focus, study. We’re not running across them.”

Yet, Farber cautioned that the University treats Adderall abuse very seriously.

Students are usually dismissed from the University who are caught either selling or with illegal possession.

“We avoid policing morality in our office and trying to parse out what is a serious drug and what is a less serious drug,” Farber said. “The realities are it’s a violation of the law to do it.”

Despite the potential for serious consequences and the tough sentences schools hand out to Adderall-using students, Donovan said most students do not worry about their Adderall use.

Once, she said she even found a posting on a public MySpace bulletin by a friend who was trying to find Adderall in order to write a paper.

“Using Adderall to study isn’t abuse because it’s kind of the point of it, to help me, to help people concentrate,” Donovan said. “No one can concentrate on homework all the time. ADHD describes symptoms of everyone sometimes. Adderall just helps people concentrate a little more.”