Adderall abuse rears ugly head

Across the collegiate United States, the illegal sale and trade of medical amphetamines climbs at an alarming rate. Normally reserved for people diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity, drugs like Adderall and Ritalin are a routine for many students.

Others consume them as well, for everything from study-aids to weight loss in the booming campus amphetamine trade.

"I've been on Adderall for ten years and have never had any problems. Before my diagnosis, school was impossible; after, I could wake up and focus just by taking a pill," says MTSU alumni Tyler Whitmore, 23, who now resides in Oak Ridge.

ADD and ADHD medications increase and sustain energy levels while invoking mild feelings of euphoria in users who do not, in fact, have the disorder. Adderall is the most well known, and widely abused, of these drugs. Side effects include loss of appetite, the involuntary grinding of one's teeth, an inability to stop sweating and, if abused, heart disease, according to the drug's official Web site.

These amphetamines are dangerous, and for other reasons than their side effects.

Adderall's role as a party stimulant doesn't help. Students take about 30 milligrams before going out to keep themselves energized for long-evenings. During these nights out, alcohol and other drugs are potentially ingested, combining the prescription medications to form a fatal cocktail. Liver damage would be the least of these abusers' concerns, heart failure being the most prominent.

"It has got to be so bad for you, taking Adderall to stay up drinking, but I can honestly say that I know plenty of people who do it," says David, a 21 year old aviation major, on conditions of anonymity.

A study published in the journal Addiction in 2005 surveyed 11,000 college students about their prescription drug use. As many as one out of four students from schools with tough admissions standards reported use of Adderall and similar stimulants to boost their performance. Overall, an average of seven percent of all college students has used one of these drugs without a prescription. Many people feel this number is rapidly increasing.

The majority of students claim they only taken Adderall when necessary, like cramming for a major exam. But the majority of these students haven't been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, so the pills must come from somewhere.

The most common answer? Friends with prescriptions.

Some collegiate women, as young as 17, purchase and take Adderall for the suppression of appetite it promises. On enough prescription amphetamines, a person can go days without even thinking of eating. For this sect, Adderall keeps the socially-conscious looking fit, ready for the unabashed approval of their peers, be it drug-induced or otherwise.

"I used to take them to get thin for summer, to maybe fit into a bikini. That was as a freshman, and I definitely wasn't the only one," says Shannon, 21, a junior design major. "Who's to say this isn't still going on with na've incoming freshman, or any grade level for that matter?"

An unspoken cause for prescription amphetamine abuse does exist. It stands as the towering elephant in many family's living rooms.

Some parents may want a cure-all to the misbehavior evident in their children. They may think there must be some reason, any reason for their kids bouncing off the walls or constantly daydreams. In the last ten years, Adderall and Ritalin have helped to remedy this behavior, temporarily filling a void. It's why ADD/ADHD is the constant diagnosis in distracted youth, why Adderall alone has been prescribed more than 30 million times since its introduction in 1996.

College is a pressure cooker. The roles parents play in our lives diminishes exponentially each day, but maybe parental reach should still exceed its grasp. They can still act as gate-keepers in these matters, even if it means rethinking the diagnosis of "grown-up" offspring.

Leave it to college students to multi-task, even with their meds.