ADHD medicine abuse rising on college campuses

Students pull long nights studying for tests, finishing projects and completing homework, but for some students, coffee and energy drinks aren’t enough to stay up and stay focused.
More and more college students are turning to ADHD medication to solve this problem.
Conner Hicks, a freshman undecided major, is prescribed to take ADHD medication by his doctor.
“I use it as prescribed every day, but I tend to use it sometimes just to keep myself awake to get my school work done,” he said.
Alan Desanties, a professor and researcher at the University of Kentucky, tracked the use on his campus and found that 30 percent of students have illegally used ADHD medications. Desanties said this trend is occurring on college campuses across the nation.
The rapid expansion in the last decade of the prescription and use of ADHD medications, including Adderall, Ritalin and Vyvanse, has worried many health professionals.
The American Association of Poison Control Centers found that between the late 1990s and the mid 2000s, ADHD prescriptions increased 80 percent. At the same time, they found emergency calls from intentional abuse of ADHD medication rose 76 percent.
A study sponsored by the Federal Drug Administration and the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality published just a few weeks ago in the New England Journal of Medicine found that ADHD medications do not increase heart risks in children and teenagers.
While this put many parents of children prescribed to these medications at ease, several doctors still warn that the abuse of ADHD medications can lead to heart risks and many other problems.
Barbara Collier, director of the University of Mississippi’s Health Services, said ADHD medications are indeed stimulants and can be dangerous when abused.
“The effect stimulants have on people who have ADHD is totally different than it would be on someone who does not have ADHD,” she said.
“It does tend to cause rapid heart rate, insomnia, agitation, anxiety and headaches.”
Collier said she believes students abuse ADHD medication in order to stay awake and study for longer periods of time, often before an exam.
Hicks said he takes the medication when there is a big test he needs to study for or when he has a lot of homework.
He also said he is happy with the results from this routine.
“Anytime that I do have a big test coming up then I take more medication and study, my grades tend to be better than they would be if I were just to use (the medication) regularly,” Hicks said.
Collier said many students who abuse ADHD medication to stay up for long periods of time don’t think about how they will feel the next day, and that abuse also leads to procrastination.
“On college campuses, those students don’t use their semester, don’t use their days and for some reason think staying up all night will save them,” she said.
Hicks said he agrees that using ADHD medication inappropriately can lead to procrastination, but he said he believes each person must understand how it affects them personally.
“The fact is that you have to be able to regulate yourself and know how much is a good level for you so you don’t take too much of it,” he said. “You have to use the right amount for you and not abuse it to a point where you take bunches of (medication) every day.”
All ADHD medications are labeled schedule two drugs because they have such a high abuse potential, and Collier said this abuse can often lead to addiction.
“(Students) think they need it for the next day and the next day, and eventually they become addicts,” Collier said.
Students who are not prescribed the drugs are treated the same as if they were taking illegal drugs by the university and the state of Mississippi.
Collier said she has known students who have been found with amphetamines not prescribed to them in their possession and were subsequently arrested.
“If you are selling it, giving it away or taking it, you could be arrested,” she said.
The net gains and loses to students grades from ADHD medication abuse has not been quantified, but other outcomes such as jail time and addiction are possible.