Adderall Still an Appealing --Though Risky -- Solution for Students During Finals

The end-of-the-semester crunch is here. Ask any college student to describe his or her life right now and the word "stress" is likely to come up.

Students have a variety of strategies for dealing with the added pressures of final exams. A stressful situation at the end of last semester led a friend of mine to give a certain blue pill a try.

He found out he had a 10-page paper due the next day in one of his courses, an assignment he had completely forgotten about. Someone offered him Adderall, a stimulant used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, saying it would help him stay up all night and focus.


For my friend, the experience turned out fine -- he got an A-minus on the paper and said he probably wouldn't have finished it without Adderall.

He is not alone. A national study released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in April said that among people ages 18 to 22, full-time college students were twice as likely to use Adderall for non-medical reasons as those who weren't in college or were only part-time students. The study also said that 6.4 percent of full-time students in that age group used Adderall without a prescription within the course of a year.

Another study released in November by Duke researchers found a similar number of college students reported using Adderall or similar stimulants without a prescription. The research found that 61 percent of the reasons cited for taking these stimulants were to "concentrate better while studying." Only a small number said they took the drug to "get high" or to "feel better."

My friend said that for him, it was a one-time deal and the only reason he'd ever use Adderall again would be if he were in a similar "crunch time" situation.

"I would never use it regularly," he said, noting the effects the substance had on him. "It increases your heart rate, and you just don't feel like yourself. It's strange. You're, like, locked in and focused. All you really want to do is work."

And that's exactly what many people asking for Adderall, or Ritalin -- a precursor to Adderall -- are looking for, according to the Duke study.

And that's also what people tell another friend of mine who's had a prescription for Ritalin since high school, when he was prescribed it to treat ADHD. At this time of year, he said he usually fields a few requests from friends who are looking to pull an all-nighter or have a lot to accomplish in a short period of time.

"They know that I use it, and they just want to concentrate more and need to focus," he said. In the last three weeks, he's had "several" requests for the drug.

"I usually don't give it out," he said, but conceded he has in the past. He added that most people who ask him for the drug are only doing so once or twice at most -- not on a regular basis.

"I think that a lot of people use it, just not frequently," he said. "Just at test times, or when they're under a lot of pressure."

And that's the conclusion of most research on the topic, which confirms the common assumption that the drug is taken on an irregular basis to deal with extra pressures, like those created by final exams. But not everyone realizes that there are risks involved when taking the drug.

The government's April report notes that Adderall and other amphetamines have a high potential for dependence or abuse, and any use of stimulants increases the risk for heart attack or stroke. Other medical concerns include the effects on existing medical conditions like high blood pressure and interactions with other prescription drugs.

My friend who used the drug to help him write the paper said he wasn't concerned with side effects and didn't have any negative reactions other than "feeling different." There was one additional effect, though -- he said he had a feeling of regret after he got his paper back with the A-minus.

"I kind of felt guilty," he said, going so far as to compare his use of Adderall to the use of steroids in professional sports. It gave him an advantage when it came to getting his work done in a short period of time.

I think I would also feel guilty. Although it's tempting, if it came down to it and I had the choice of taking the blue pill or jacking up on caffeine to get through my work, I'd stick to my latte.

And if I really wanted to keep the drugs out of my system, my school offers special meditative study break sessions to aid relaxation and focus. They probably don't have the same effect as the little blue pill, but they're a lot less risky.