Experts warn of pill use as students feel stress
Andrew FitzGerald
Issue date: 12/12/07 Section: News
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After spending an entire sleepless night writing her final paper for a summer course at Harvard while still in high school, Sophie faced a choice between sleeping off her late-night study streak or taking a shortcut.
"One of my friends was like, 'Here, take this and you can stay up tomorrow and we can hang out,'" said Sophie, a School of Management sophomore who asked her name be changed for this article.
Eager to spend their last day together, Sophie said she and her friend crushed up a blue Adderall pill, snorted the powder and spent nine wide-awake hours shopping in Harvard Square.
Though she spent that day before her senior year in high school out and about, Sophie nevertheless thought of Adderall - the most popular of drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - again before her first final exam at Boston University, this time as a study aid. She said the pills, intended to treat ADHD, helped her cram in pages of material after days of procrastinating.
Though students describe non-prescribed "smart pills" as a way to get the easy A, an ongoing study suggests so-called brain steroids could actually hurt students' grades in the long run.
In a study that followed some members of the 2004 freshman class at an unnamed mid-Atlantic university, researchers at the University of Maryland's Center for Drug Abuse Research surveyed 1,253 students on their use and opinions of a host of drugs, including ADHD medications.
The study reported students who took drugs intended to treat ADHD without a prescription were more likely to abuse other illicit drugs as well that tend to take time away from studying.
"You might pass that test, but over time it does not improve your GPA," said lead researcher Amelia Arria.
To provide a broader picture of American college students, drug experts say more research remains to be done about ADHD medications. Most comprehensive national studies have focused on high school students, and even those studies tend to classify misuse of ADHD medications with other prescription drugs.
"One of my friends was like, 'Here, take this and you can stay up tomorrow and we can hang out,'" said Sophie, a School of Management sophomore who asked her name be changed for this article.
Eager to spend their last day together, Sophie said she and her friend crushed up a blue Adderall pill, snorted the powder and spent nine wide-awake hours shopping in Harvard Square.
Though she spent that day before her senior year in high school out and about, Sophie nevertheless thought of Adderall - the most popular of drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - again before her first final exam at Boston University, this time as a study aid. She said the pills, intended to treat ADHD, helped her cram in pages of material after days of procrastinating.
Though students describe non-prescribed "smart pills" as a way to get the easy A, an ongoing study suggests so-called brain steroids could actually hurt students' grades in the long run.
In a study that followed some members of the 2004 freshman class at an unnamed mid-Atlantic university, researchers at the University of Maryland's Center for Drug Abuse Research surveyed 1,253 students on their use and opinions of a host of drugs, including ADHD medications.
The study reported students who took drugs intended to treat ADHD without a prescription were more likely to abuse other illicit drugs as well that tend to take time away from studying.
"You might pass that test, but over time it does not improve your GPA," said lead researcher Amelia Arria.
To provide a broader picture of American college students, drug experts say more research remains to be done about ADHD medications. Most comprehensive national studies have focused on high school students, and even those studies tend to classify misuse of ADHD medications with other prescription drugs.
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