Want some Adderall? Chances are, all you have to do is ask the person sitting behind you in class.

Illegal substances such as marijuana, cocaine and crystal methamphetamine aren’t the only drugs commonly abused by college students. Adderall, a legally prescribed medication, has become popular for academic performance and recreational use among students —often without a prescription.

Adderall is a drug used to treat people who suffer from attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The pill stimulates the brain and allows the person to settle and focus.

“It gets their neurons to fire more together, so to speak,” says Dr. Raymond Leone, chief university physician at DeWeese Health Center. “A true ADD person will have a desk full of things to do but does everything except for those tasks. Once they’re put on the meds, they’re able to prioritize.”

Jenna, a Kent State senior, suffers from ADD, and without her medication she can’t concentrate on even the simplest task. Jenna’s name has been changed, as well as the names of the other student sources in this story.

“I never realized how much it helped me until after I took it. The day I got it, I took it and went to class,” Jenna says. “I didn’t realize until after the class was over that I paid attention the entire time.

“I used to doodle on my paper, and now I don’t even do that anymore. It made a significant difference for me.”

For users who don’t suffer from ADD or ADHD, the effects of the drug are significantly different.

Brian, a Kent State junior, says he first took Adderall during his freshman year of college.

“I had my first big history essay exam, and I wanted to try it and see if it made me focus,” he says. “It definitely worked, too. I studied for hours in the library, and I got something like a 97 on the exam.”
Carrie, a former Kent State student, says she has used the drug recreationally as well.

“I took it for the first time in 2004, during my first semester at the main branch,” she says. “I was told it would help me study, get better grades, stay awake and help me focus — and it did.”

Leone says misuse of stimulant drugs, especially amphetamines, is not a new development and has been happening since the 1960s.

“For a while, we didn’t hear about it much. Drug use was more mainstream in the ’60s and ’70s, and in the ’80s it started fading,” he says. “Now it’s back in full swing, although it seems to be more underground than before.”

Adderall wasn’t introduced to the market until 1996, Leone says, but another ADD medication, Ritalin, works in the same way.

“In med school, people would always be asking around for Ritalin,” he says. “It was like the Adderall of my day.”

Without giving it a second thought, students who need to pull an all-nighter may pop an Adderall with their Starbucks cappuccino and prepare themselves for hours of knowledge retention, but many of them may not know that taking Adderall is risky, as with any drug.

Some of the more common risks and side effects include loss of appetite, increased heart rate and blood pressure, insomnia, nausea and nervousness, Leone says.

In addition, rage and nervous tics may develop over time because the brain is so over-stimulated.

Carrie says she experienced many of those side effects after using the drug.

“When you’re on it, you get really fidgety and talk a lot,” she says. “Toward the end, when your high is going down, you feel depressed and lose your appetite.”

Carrie also described feeling depressed after using it over a longer period of time, and says several times she had “crazy thoughts about things I wouldn’t normally think about.”

She says because she is no longer in school, she uses Adderall less often than before. But because she works the midnight shift at her job, every once in a while she’ll take one to stay awake.

Brian is less wary of using the drug. He says he has never experienced any negative side effects or dependency, and he only takes it when he’s put off studying so long that he needs to stay up all night.

“Every time I have taken it, it has helped me, and that is why I still use it when I have something I think I might have trouble focusing on,” he says. “I can get things done.”

Leone says people who don’t have ADD or ADHD and take Adderall may also develop symptoms of the disorders.

“If you take the drug and you don’t have ADD, you’ll be able to focus really well, but you’ll also tend to refocus very easily,” he says. “To a degree you can be exquisitely productive or exquisitely counterproductive.”

Carrie remembers this happening to her on more than one occasion.

“I would take it to study, but if I got distracted, I would be doing whatever it is that distracted me for, like, five hours,” she says. “If someone called me, I’d be on the phone and not even realize how long I’d been talking to them until after the conversation was over.”

Carrie, Jenna and Brian all agree Adderall is a cheap and fairly easy drug to come across, especially on a college campus.

“Probably in a large class you’ll find maybe one out of five people who use it, so it’s relatively easy to get,” Carrie says. “You usually need to know someone, though, because I don’t know many people who want to go around asking random people for it.”

She says when she buys Adderall, she usually pays $4 to $5 per pill, which is about average. Brian says he pays less because he has “connections.”

“Normally my friend would just give it to me, but if I wanted five or 10 at a time to hold me over, he might charge me $10 to $15. If I just wanted one, he’d charge $2 to $3 a pill,” he says. “He said he got it for free, and he was making a 100 percent profit so he was able to charge less for it.”

Jenna says she tries not to advertise that she has a prescription for the pills but that she will give them to her friends once in a while.

Leone says it’s common for people with Adderall prescriptions to distribute pills to others, but medically, it’s not a good idea.

ADD and ADHD sufferers require their medication to function properly, he says, and for Adderall to do its job effectively, it must be taken every day. Giving away pills disrupts the way the drug works.

And even though they readily use the drug, students know it’s being used more and more often for the wrong reasons.

“I definitely think it’s misused, of course,” Jenna says. “People misuse every drug, but this one is easier to get, and people, especially college students, take advantage of that.”

Leone says he doesn’t condone the recreational use of Adderall, but he doesn’t condemn it, either.

“It’s sort of like having a glass of wine to relax after a long day,” he says. “One glass of wine doesn’t make you an alcoholic. Using Adderall to help you focus every once in a while doesn’t make you an addict.”

But because of its high potential for abuse, Adderall is grouped with drugs such as cocaine, oxycodone, opium and morphine in groupings set up by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Under this system, all substances regulated under existing federal law must be placed into schedules ranked one through five, ranging from most potential for abuse to least. These drugs have been placed in Schedule II.

Because it’s such a dangerous substance, Leone says the health center does not write or fill Adderall prescriptions. The only way for a student to obtain the drug is to present a written note from his or her regular physician saying the medication is needed.

“I only do this on rare occasions,” Leone says. “We’ll bridge the medication for someone who lives far away and doesn’t get home often to get the prescription filled.”

Leone disapproves of using Adderall as a means of intoxication, however. He says some people will use it while they party, but when mixed with alcohol or other drugs, the effects of Adderall are intensified.

“It makes you feel strong and a little bit invincible, and young people tend to feel that way anyway,” he says.

Jenna says although she’s never done it, she knows a lot of people who have taken the drug while partying.

“I guess it makes you more messed up when you take Adderall and drink at the same time,” she says.

Leone says this type of behavior is dangerous for several reasons. It may cause a person to engage in risky behavior, such as driving at unsafe speeds. It may also impair judgment or trick a person into thinking his or her reflexes are better than they actually are.

“The escape from reality, party-until-I-drop part isn’t good,” Leone says. “The drugs are so powerful, yet subtle, that it can make you drop permanently.”

According to the official Adderall Web site, 50 million prescriptions for the medicine have been written since 1996. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to track how many people have used the drug for recreational purposes.

“I’m afraid for people who abuse,” Leone says. “We have to hope people don’t get hurt while finding themselves. I just want people to use their heads.”

Elise Franco is a senior magazine journalism
major. This is her first story for The Burr.
Contact her at efranco@kent.edu.

STORY
Elise Franco

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
Michele Roehrig

STAYING AWAKE
CAFFEINE VS
ADDERALL

Caffeine
• Caffeine is a stimulant used to treat drowsiness and cure headaches.
• Side effects include insomnia, nervousness, upset stomach, tremor, increased metabolism, increased heart rate and headaches.
• Regular daily use may cause withdrawal symptoms such as headache, anxiety or muscle tension within 12 to 18 hours.
• It can have an effect within 15 minutes after being taken.

Caffeine Pills
• One pill contains 200 mg of caffeine.
• The average age of people who abuse caffeine supplements is 21.

Coffee
• One 8-ounce cup of coffee contains about 83 mg of caffeine.
• Six or more 8-ounce cups of coffee per day (500 mg) is considered excessive intake of caffeine.
• About 68 percent of Americans say they have a caffeine addiction.

Energy drinks
• The amount of caffeine per serving varies by brand:
AMP energy drink:
75 mg
Red Bull: 80 mg
Full Throttle: 144 mg
Sobe No Fear: 158 mg

Adderall
• Adderall is a stimulant that regulates behavior and attention. It affects how the brain controls impulses by influencing the availability of neurotransmitters in the brain.
• Side effects include loss of appetite, difficulty falling asleep, stomach ache, weight loss, dry mouth and headache.
• A single-dose of Adderall is equivalent to two daily doses of Ritalin.

Sources: WebMD.com, FDA.gov, MayoClinic.com

— Heather Vitale