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Stressed? There’s a Pill for That
By Maureen Penland
Doing a Line
The tiny amphetamine salts, little, round minuscule pearls, were almost fully crushed into a finely ground snowy-white powder. These were the 20-milligram pills, packing a mighty punch for such a tiny pill. The pills typically range in potency, starting at 5 mg. ending at 30 mg, the strongest pill on the legal market. The now finely crushed powder was an Adderall pill. Millions of Adderall prescriptions are written each year around the world. Sitting just feet away from us was one of those prescriptions of the drug…about to be ingested in a highly “unrecommended” manner. Thousands of tiny, crystalized, microscopic little bits of the wonder drug are spread across the counter, waiting to be placed into three thin white lines. The drug that has been referred to by students as the study cocaine. If not ingested quickly enough, the powder might just slip away, or fall into the cracks of the grout in the old, tile counter.
Colin Brown*, whose last name has been changed for privacy, inhaled a deep breath filling every inch of his lungs, and exhaled slowly through his nose. A piece of college-ruled notebook paper sat on the counter next to the thin, snowy white line. Colin quickly adjusted the paper into a carefully rolled ‘bank note’. Without any hesitation, he lowered his head, the bridge of his nose just an inch from the counter now, and his nostril now holding the thinly rolled paper, snorting in the Adderall, line by line. The pills, costing him roughly $20 total, were gone in an instance. The buzz in his brain and the rush of fiery heat in his chest would hit him in a matter if minutes. “It usually takes about fifteen minutes for it to take nearly full effect to a person. For me, sometimes that time can be ever shorter,” he said.
The surge of intense alertness began filling his brain, expanding through his veins, into his bloodstream. The drug was working, just as it always had every time before. This wasn’t Colin’s first time experimenting with the drug. In fact, he wasn’t experimenting at all. This wasn’t an addiction. It was a prescription from a highly regarded doctor he had been seeing and trusting for years. Colin was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) when he was in fifth grade. Teachers started wondering why he couldn’t sit still like all the other students. Any form of writing, math, science, really any elementary general subject was an insurmountable struggle for him. Mrs. Matthews, Colin’s fifth grade English teacher is the one to thank, “she’s the hero,” he said.
The 22-year-old college student, fairly well-versed on the plethora of effects from the ‘study drug’ was in his zone. Bright dark brown eyes open and alert, a sense of tingling from his feet to the top of his head. A feeling he can’t get from anything else. He’s tried cocaine, “but it was too expensive, and I can’t get a prescription for cocaine but I can for Adderall,” he said. Both cocaine and Adderall are uppers, in drug language they are classified as “speed” Uplifting the user to a state of euphoria for some, feeling exuberant, high, happy, full of energy. Adderall and cocaine have some commonalities, but not enough to take Adderall off the legal drug market. The amphetamines affect everyone at a different pace, just like any prescription drug, for some less is more. “Usually I take two 20 milligram pills every other day,” Colin said. “The effect for everyone is different.” In other terms, once dependent on the drug, like most other prescription drug addictions, a strong reliance becomes a chore… an addiction.
The Cleveland, Ohio native, born to his two caring parents and one older sister loved childhood and growing up. Always seen as popular amongst his peers through the years at school, Colin was the kid to be friends with. “I loved my childhood, I had a great upbringing, a tight-knit Italian family and just overall a good life,” he said. But, having happiness and popularity didn’t change Colin’s struggles with learning. Mr. Barrett’s 9th grade biology class. Colin sat in the very last row on a squeaky chair, plastic chair…idly staring at the whiteboard in front of him, wrapping his brain around close to nothing. It was right at that moment in time, in that squeaky chair, Colin learned the art of pill-popping. “I had the prescription since 5th grade, but it took me until the moment in science class when I knew I wasn’t retaining anything and wouldn’t pass without a little extra help,” je said. And so it began. Since 2005 when Colin was a high school freshman, he’s been relying on Adderall on almost a daily basis. “This pill has given me A’s in college classes I feel I would otherwise be struggling in…why would I want to stop?”
Stopping isn’t an option for Colin. With just now one year left of college, Colin needs to gear up for what’s next. “Finding a job these days is hard enough, but I can’t imagine having to put in all the work and concentration without the Adderall. I truly need it to focus on absolutely everything,” he said.
What is this drug
Risks associated with non-medical use of Adderall are much the same as those of cocaine or methamphetamine abuse. Seizure, hypertension, stroke, heart attack, psychosis, aggressive behavior, and sudden death plague are just some of the serious issues that may arise if misusing the drug.
In 1996 this neural-transmitting drug was first was introduced to the pharmaceutical market. Little did the chemists and manufactures know that just a decade later, their drug would be misued and very abused. Adderall’s original purpose, surprisingly was not for Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It was a new diet pill called Obetrol. With a chemical make-up consisting of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine, the drug is designed to increase mental and physical functions, or sometimes both. Back when it was first invented and placed on the busy drug market, Adderall was found to increase mental concentration, specifically in young children with concentration difficulties. Now, Adderall is one of the seemingly most popular prescription drugs taken by college students around the globe. About a decade ago, the drug was adopted by college students as a study drug or cognitive enhancer, not just as a drug to subdue the symptoms of ADHD. And, the usage of Adderall is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is not the intended use for it either. Compared to Ritalin, a drug that is also prescribed to patients who suffer from ADHD, Adderall is slightly more potent and has a longer period of efficacy.
In 2011, 8.3% of college students admitted using it for non-medical purposes, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That’s about twice the percentage of people of college age who are not enrolled in school. If students abuse Adderall all year, just imagine how many pop pills during finals week, when everyone has a seemingly insurmountable workload and is already exhausted from the long semester.
Could this truly be a college-wide epidemic and growing problem needing to be stopped? Right now 7% of college students are illegally taking a form of Adderall, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The survey also discovered that college students between the ages of 18 and 22 were twice as likely to use the drug for non-medicinal purposes, meaning, not having a ADD or ADHD, yet still ingesting the drug, as those not in college. Many of these students, according to the survey, are much more likely to be experimenting with other forms of drugs and substances, than those students steering clear of the pill. Students are “Three times more likely to use marijuana, five times more likely to use pain relievers illegally, eight times more likely to use cocaine and tranquilizers illegally.
On a college humor website, an anonymous student poster admitted to, “
Another famous website, focuses on mainly crude humor amongst young adults, gaining popularity in high schools and colleges, is “Texts From Last Night.” The website encourages users, all nameless, to post text messages they received from “last night” to share on the website. Rather than screen naming to identify a poster, the website allows users to identify themselves with an area code. One recent post from area code, “678” which was determined to be a metropolitan Atlanta area code, stated, “Just snorted the last of your Adderall. Note to self, don’t take more than 100 mg in one night.” Another text from 251, southwestern Alabama, read, “I got so doped out on addy I ended up overdosing,” Text messages such as these are now seemingly commonplace amongst the college crowd, and it doesn’t seem to be entirely academic struggles.
One young woman became so seemingly distraught about her classmates’ Adderall addiction, she blogged about her experiences, not taking with not taking the drug. The woman declined to comment when asked for an interview. But, on her blog, the 21-year-old nursing student vents of the lack of academic integrity because of the drugs use. “As nursing students, I find it ironic that they’re suing, or even condoning usage of this drug illegally.” The woman admitted to regularly overhearing two of her classmates discussing taking Adderall to “cram for a big exam”. “Nursing is not the easiest college degree to obtain, and this is not an easy school, but here I am studying days, sometimes weeks in advance to ace exams and to actually learn the material on my own, no enhancement necessary, while these two future ‘nurses’ dope on the drug on a weekly basis to concentrate and learn the material. Talk about hypocritical.” “It becomes clearer that we’re a drug mongering society. We need drugs now, and we need them later.”
Other people feel similarly about the massive prescription drug industry in the United States. Even well renowned author Mitch Albom had something to say last July on the Detroit Free Press. “We live in the Age of Prescription when anything and everything has a pill assigned to it… Our medicine cabinets are stocked with small brown bottles. Think about how many kids are already on Adderall,” he said. The king of all “college drugs”, It wakes you up, keeps you awake, and then literally forces a state of awakens upon the user….that’s Adderall.
Television too, Albom says plays a large role in our massive consumption of unnecessary drug consumption. We watch television ads and we immediately diagnose ourselves with these diseases that we don’t even have “Heartbreak? There’s a pill for that. Depression, high blood pressure, cholesterol, there’s pills for all of those things.”
University Life
Back in 2010, Wesleyan University took a firm stance on the usage of these ‘pharmaceutical study aides’. The University claimed the usage of Adderall and Ritalin, by those students without a legal prescription, to be in violation of the University’s honor code. Although it is commonplace at many school’s of higher education to hold a similar high caliber of integrity amongst the student body, completely banning a drug many use a recreational seemed out-of-sorts for some. Wesleyan’s Vice President of student affairs, Michael J. Whaley, told Inside Higher Ed during an interview, the ban is well-suited for the school, with the school’s expectancy to raise awareness of the misuse of the drug and to ban the unfair advantage of it’s misuse. Mixed reviews circulated the small Connecticut campus. Wesleyan made a clear reputation of what the University deems as ethical and the lack there of. It seems that only one part of the Wesleyan Honor Code could be applied to prescription drugs. As part of this newfound system, all Wesleyan students must literally sign a pledge, affirming they will take all tests, complete all assignments, and all other academic exercises “be completed without improper assistance.” Whether or not this will affect the University’s enrollment, no one really knows. This also puts into question other legal stimulants. What about coffee, energy drinks, or energy pills? Calling any of the aforementioned a cheating mechanism would be deemed ludicrous by college students currently overusing Adderall. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t choose Wesleyan,” Colin said.
It seems that only one part of the Wesleyan Honor Code could be applied to prescription drugs. As part of the pledge that all students are required to make, students must affirm that their tests and other academic exercises are completed “without improper assistance.” But what really counts as ‘improper assistance?”
Chicago college student Randolph Baldwin gets the grades without the assistance of any drugs. “Honestly, I don’t need drugs. It may sound cliché but I just don’t understand why people do drugs, especially prescription drugs without the prescription. That’s just crazy.”
Party Drug
Colin’s vintage Bob Marley clock on the white, otherwise bare wall of the little living room would tell any seemingly ‘normal’ person it was now 10 p.m. Not to Colin. 10 p.m. meant he was already running behind and he best catch up before the typical Friday night barrage of, “Where are we going” text messages illuminated his iPhone 4 screen. His two roommates weren’t home. They had taken advantage of their opportunity to start early. “They’re all already high as a kite most likely,” Colin said. Tonight it was a concert at Chicago’s well-known venue, The Mid. With a capacity reaching numbers in the thousands, The Mid hosts a number of numerous shows on a weekly basis. And, according to Colin, sneaking in “substances” isn’t too difficult to do.
10:18 p.m. Colin rips out a piece of notebook paper, rolls it up small enough to fit into his nose, and the process begins again. One, two, three pills taken on the counter this time. The lightweight, hollow red and orange capsules are carefully unscrewed. Pouring the pills’ prized contents into a small plastic bowl, a silvery spoon harshly crushes the amphetamine salts in the bowl. A cylinder, one that would typically be used for cooking purposes, is used to pour the finely granulated powder onto the counter. He begins to snort the drug quickly, to avoid the at times inevitable nosebleed snorting can cause.
10:46 Colin is on the phone with Will, his longtime friend from home. On his way to the show, he’s starting to feel the full buzz. “This show is going to soo great and so enjoyable tonight. I’m pumped,” he said.
11:23 Colin is at the concert, buzzing around, catching up to the feeling his friends are feeling at the very moment. “I’m content, I’m relaxed, and I never want this feeling to end…”
Online Journalism 