Adderall use increases on college campuses

Editor's Note: To protect their identities, sources' *names have been altered.

It was during his junior year at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Overland Park, Kan., when Chris Turner* first had an urge to try something different.

He was a successful student, at least by his standards. He passed his classes and had plans to attend K-State after graduation.

But still, something felt different. He felt behind, and he wanted an edge.

By then, Turner knew about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. The condition intrigued him, and Turner frequently thought he might suffer from the disorder, but he never consulted a doctor to ask questions or seek a proper diagnosis.

"[I] wasn't able to stay focused during classes," he said. "There were 30 people in each class, which was kind of a lot coming from smaller classes in previous [years]. There was more to divert your attention, and so when you hear about people beginning to get diagnosed with ADHD and hear about the symptoms, then you kind of start to think that it might be something that you might have."

Above all, he felt he could do better, and though he tried he never found an answer for his lack of attentiveness and motivation in the classroom.

In his junior year of high school, Turner's close friend approached him and offered him a dose of Adderall for the first time. The small capsule was a prescription-strength amphetamine-based stimulant used by children and adults to combat the symptoms of ADHD.

The offer was simple and intriguing to Turner. Others used it and he thought it gave them the edge he was seeking, and so he accepted the offer.

"I was like ‘Yeah sure,'" Turner said. "So I did, and then just noticed I was about a thousand times more involved in my classes for the rest of the day."

There was no doubt in his mind the pill had helped. In fact, Turner said he used Adderall a few more times throughout the remainder of his high school career, even though he still never saw a doctor.

The exchange he made with his friend at St. Thomas was illegal, and Turner said he knew it, but it didn't bother him. To him, the use of Adderall was an academic aid, not drug abuse.

"I think it was purely academic," he said.

With the drug, he had found the answer he was seeking, temporarily at least. It was a powerful tool to combat his distractions.

As Turner would soon learn after graduating high school, Adderall is extremely popular with several other students for the same reason it helped him.

When Turner arrived for his freshman year at K-State in the fall 2008 semester, he pledged to a fraternity house on campus, and immediately was drawn into the social and academic atmospheres of college life.

He had only taken Adderall a few times in high school and didn't plan on using it again unless he received a proper prescription.

But it didn't take long for the stress and pressure of college to trigger the thought of using it again.

And it didn't help that Adderall was even easier to obtain at K-State.

Though he said he didn't plan to use it again, Turner's workload quickly piled on and he sought the extra edge.

"It just happened," he said. "I just heard about people using it and how much it helped them with their homework, and so I kind of tried it again. I figured I had a six-page paper due two days later and was just like ‘All right I'll just take it just for this paper.'"

Living in a fraternity house provided Turner the chance to use Adderall almost as often as he thought he needed to. But he had to pay for the pills this time, which cost him about $5 to $10 apiece.

The accessibility amazed him.

"It was probably like a one-phone-call-away kind of thing," he said. "You kind of know who has it, so it's very easy to get ahold of."

The fraternity house is where he met Tim Parkin*, also a sophomore. Parkin didn't have a prescription for Adderall either, but curiosity and the accessibly within the fraternity house and on campus allowed him to take advantage of the drug with relative ease.

"I knew there were a couple of people within my fraternity that were doing it," Parkin said. "I tried it a couple of times and it was something that was beneficial for me."

Together the two of them bought doses of Adderall from members in the fraternity house and around campus whenever they felt they needed an extra boost in their studies or homework.

"It was just for studying for tests usually," Parkin said. "I took it a couple of times a week before tests or busy weeks."

It's a habit that has become increasingly common on college campuses across the nation. According to a July 2005 New York Times article, a study focusing on college campuses showed as many as 20 percent of students report using Ritalin or Adderall for academic assistance.

"I have noticed and been able to observe the tendency or the increase in prescription medication to manage all types of behavior," said Travis Linnemann, professor of sociology and graduate student in sociology. "Stimulants such as Adderall tend to be the most common one, and it just makes sense that as kids transition from secondary education to post-secondary education that they would come to college and they might be presented with the opportunity to abuse these drugs more readily."

Parkin, who began using the pill during his sophomore year at K-State, said he immediately noticed the effects.

"There was definitely a difference," he said. "My tests, I felt better prepared for. With that being said, I was at a point that spring semester when I was on it, I used it as a crutch. It made me feel good because I was actually studying more and I felt motivated to do it."

Linnemann said students often use school to justify their abuse of Adderall.

"I think some of the deviance related to it is reduced when you think about in terms of doing something pro-social," he said. "Using this drug not recreationally in a deviant manner to get high or do whatever else, but to be able to accomplish an acceptable task reduces at least some of the cultural consequences of it."