High School Students on Study Drugs

Thump.

Repeatedly dropping an iPhone on the scratched wooden table, the senior stares out the window and down the hallway to collect his thoughts.

“I started taking it cause I heard about it and I know a lot of college students use it to help them with exams and things,” Steve* says.

Thump.

“Last year when we had midterms I started taking it to help me focus.

The study drug. The intended purpose of Adderall is to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, students of all ages are abusing the drug for the cognitive benefits and enhanced ability to focus. While it is more common among the college level, the distribution and unprescribed use of Adderall has trickled down to students in high school.

And for a strong reason: teens schedules are packed. For a student who takes difficult classes, plays sports, has a job, and is involved outside of school, this amphetamine keeps one concentrated (long enough) to get it all done.

Steve started using Adderall around midterms of last year. “I had two exams that day, physics and math, and so I decided to try it to help me focus.” Since then, he used Adderall sporadically throughout the rest of his junior year and into the beginning of this year, for academic and recreational use.

“For the first hour or hour and a half, you are energetic, but after that you are like a zombie.” Steve says that when you’re “really in the thick of it,” you aren’t worried about anything else. “You have nothing else on your mind. You’re zoned in on what you need to do, and you’re probably going to get it done fast because you’re not looking around the room or playing with your phone.”

A blue pill that causes an increased attention span sounds too good to be true for busy students, but Adderall’s effects go beyond the possibility of better grades.

Steve hit an extreme in his Adderall use, saying they didn’t even feel like the same person. “I went through a three day span where I took way too much. Your head feels different, like scrambled eggs, and you start to lose a lot of weight,” he said. “I went two days without even noticing that I hadn’t eaten anything. I hadn’t eaten a meal and I didn’t even notice.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Adderall causes these effects and many more because it works by increasing dopamine levels in the brain, which are associated with “pleasure, movement, and attention.” When taken in doses without a prescription, stimulant drugs can “increase brain dopamine in a rapid and highly amplified manner.”

“I couldn’t stop moving my leg,” Steve said about his increased energy level while on Adderall.

As part of Albemarle County’s Safe Schools Healthy Students program, Project Toward No Drugs (TND) has recorded the number of students who use certain drugs based on their annual Climate Survey. In 2012, 6.6 percent of high schoolers abused prescription drugs.

A higher number, however, is presented by a 2013 NIH study, where 7.4 percent of high school seniors specifically abused Adderall.

Students’ use of Adderall or simply their interest in the drug’s abilities has led to a misconception. “It’s not giving you super brain boost power, it just helps you focus,” Steve said. “I can’t say I did better because of it.”

While Adderall may boost a student’s ability to focus, the drug cannot improve one’s “learning or thinking ability, when taken by people who do not actually have ADHD,” according to the NIH.

This is only part of the reason why Steve stopped using Adderall. He used it at the beginning of school this year but decided to stop because “I wasn’t the same person.”

“My head was all boggled because I had been doing it too much. I had people telling me ‘what’s up with you?’ and ‘you’re not the same person.’”

Based on this experience, Steve says his past Adderall use was not worth it; however, “I can’t say I would never do it again.”

* Name has been changed.