adderall advantage
Drug Abuse in College - New York Times
Page 1 of 3
July 31, 2005
The Adderall Advantage
By ANDREW JACOBS
IT was finals week at Columbia University and Angela needed a miracle. Like many of her classmates,
Angela, a bleary-eyed junior, had already pulled a pair of all-nighters to get through a paper on
"Finnegans Wake," a French test and an exam for her music humanities class. All that remained was a
Latin American literature final, but as midnight approached, her stamina was beginning to fade. "This week is killing me," she said, taking a cigarette break in front of the school library. "At this point, I could use a little help."
Thanks to a friend, the tiny orange pill in her purse would provide the needed miracle. Angela, who asked that her last name not be published for fear of alarming her family and angering university officials, popped a 30-milligram tablet of Adderall into her mouth, washed it down with coffee and headed back to the library for another night of cramming. The next morning, she sailed through the exam confidently and scored an A. "I don't think I could keep a 3.9 average without this stuff," she said afterward. At many colleges across the country, the ingredients for academic success now include a steady flow of analeptics, the class of prescription amphetamines that is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Since Ritalin abuse first hit the radar screen several years ago, the reliance on prescription stimulants to enhance performance has risen, becoming almost as commonplace as No-Doz, Red Bull and maybe even caffeine. As many as 20 percent of college students have used Ritalin or Adderall to study, write papers and take exams, according to recent surveys focused on individual campuses. A study released this month by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia found that the number of teenagers who admit to abusing prescription medications tripled from 1992 to 2003, while
Page 1 of 3
July 31, 2005
The Adderall Advantage
By ANDREW JACOBS
IT was finals week at Columbia University and Angela needed a miracle. Like many of her classmates,
Angela, a bleary-eyed junior, had already pulled a pair of all-nighters to get through a paper on
"Finnegans Wake," a French test and an exam for her music humanities class. All that remained was a
Latin American literature final, but as midnight approached, her stamina was beginning to fade. "This week is killing me," she said, taking a cigarette break in front of the school library. "At this point, I could use a little help."
Thanks to a friend, the tiny orange pill in her purse would provide the needed miracle. Angela, who asked that her last name not be published for fear of alarming her family and angering university officials, popped a 30-milligram tablet of Adderall into her mouth, washed it down with coffee and headed back to the library for another night of cramming. The next morning, she sailed through the exam confidently and scored an A. "I don't think I could keep a 3.9 average without this stuff," she said afterward. At many colleges across the country, the ingredients for academic success now include a steady flow of analeptics, the class of prescription amphetamines that is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Since Ritalin abuse first hit the radar screen several years ago, the reliance on prescription stimulants to enhance performance has risen, becoming almost as commonplace as No-Doz, Red Bull and maybe even caffeine. As many as 20 percent of college students have used Ritalin or Adderall to study, write papers and take exams, according to recent surveys focused on individual campuses. A study released this month by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia found that the number of teenagers who admit to abusing prescription medications tripled from 1992 to 2003, while