\u201cI\u2019m going to take an Adderall and study all night.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s no telling how many times those words have been echoed around campus.\u00a0 Today students face extreme academic pressures to get the best grades possible.\u00a0 In high school, the stakes are getting into a good college.\u00a0 However in college, the stakes become much higher as getting bad grades can lead to you not getting into the med school you want, or not landing an internship that could lead to your dream job.\u00a0 The stakes are different for everyone, but one thing is certain at a top university like Vanderbilt: everyone wants to succeed.\u00a0 Because of the rigorous academic work, and competitive scholastic environment at universities across the country, students look for any advantage they can get.\u00a0 Today, the answer for so many is Adderall, also known as the \u2018study drug\u2019 (1). Many have been prescribed it; many more have taken it.\u00a0 Because of the effects of the drug, many students will find ways of obtaining the drug such as buying it from a friend, or even faking symptoms to get a prescription.<\/p>\n
Adderall is prescribed for people with ADHD or narcolepsy.\u00a0 However, since the drugs effects on the brain increase student\u2019s ability to focus, many people fake symptoms in order to get the drug so they can use it to study.\u00a0 A recent study showed that 93% of students were able to fake Adderall symptoms and get a false positive diagnosis.\u00a0 Therefore, many of the people who get prescribed ADHD medicine do not necessarily need it.\u00a0 This means doctors are overprescribing the medicine.\u00a0 Furthermore, one experiments findings said that \u201cstudents could successfully get a false positive diagnosis with just five minutes of Google searching on ADHD symptoms\u201d (2).\u00a0 Thus, the testing currently in place is ineffective and does not accurately assess the symptoms of ADHD. The fact that students are able to very easily and successfully obtain a prescription if they desire is scary considering the perceived competitive advantage it gives in terms of studying and grades.<\/p>\n
So how prevalent is Adderall usage?\u00a0 This week I made a survey to ask people around Vanderbilt\u2019s campus to find out how many students around us are using Adderall or other drugs prescribed for people with ADHD.\u00a0 Of the people who completed the survey, only 38% of students were prescribed Adderall or other drug, however 79% of students said they had taken the drug.\u00a0 This means that roughly 40% of students surveyed who were not prescribed the drug had taken it for studying or other use.\u00a0 With such a large number of people surveyed saying they have taken the drug, I was curious to see if there were any specific characteristics of people taking the drug.\u00a0 There seemed to be equal percentages of males and females taking Adderall.\u00a0 However, there were a disproportionate number of people in fraternities or sororities taking the drug.\u00a0 Further, the older the respondent was, the more likely they were to have taken the drug.\u00a0 Thus, on Vanderbilt\u2019s campus it seems the most likely people to take these study drugs are older members of fraternities or sororities.<\/p>\n
At a top quality academic institution such as Vanderbilt students are often in great competition with each other.\u00a0 Therefore, is it fair to have a drug that helps you study? In a competitive college if your friends are doing it and showing positive results, then you have a huge incentive because those are the people you\u2019re competing for jobs with.\u00a0 As bad and unethical as that may sound, many people who don\u2019t need the drug have resorted to Adderall in order to increase their GPA.\u00a0 As one student put it, Adderall is \u201csteroids for the brain\u201d.\u00a0 Thus, if you look at baseball where in the early 2000\u2019s steroids became a huge problem, as one person taking them would lead to increased batting average and homeruns.\u00a0 Then more and more people began taking steriods.\u00a0 While the problem was eventually cured in major league baseball, the same principles apply to academics in college.\u00a0 As some people begin taking these \u2018brain drugs\u2019 and seeing results, more and more will join them.<\/p>\n
Students have gone beyond taking these drugs for studying.\u00a0 Many college kids taking these drugs are unaware of their severe consequences.\u00a0 \u201cBetween 2005 and 2010, emergency room visits related to ADHD stimulant medications used non-medically tripled from 5,212 to 15,585 visits\u201d (2).\u00a0 Nearly half of those visits were from mixing Adderall with alcohol. \u00a0Therefore college students are now using Adderall to stay up late into the night and be able to drink more.\u00a0 The solution from stopping students from abusing these drugs is two fold.\u00a0 First and easiest, awareness about the side effects and consequences of taking prescribed Adderall should be preached to college students.\u00a0 Second, and more effective, would be developing a more accurate test for Adderall so only those in need will be prescribed the medicine.\u00a0 However until that is done, students will always be able to fake the symptoms and doctors will be unable to tell.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m going to take an Adderall and study all night.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s no telling how many times those words have been echoed around campus.\u00a0 Today students face extreme academic pressures to get the best grades possible.\u00a0 In high school, the stakes … Continue reading