Finals have or are being finished up on college campuses all across the country. This means we get to give our brains a bit of a break with a little aimless gaming or Netflix watching. The prospects of alcohol or drug usage is also going to completely shift, which means that sobriety will hopefully be the best option over the holidays.
A long-standing college student trend over the past decade has been a heightened usage of prescription substances. This may include the indulgence of Xanax or Vicodin before going out to party (which isn't recommended), but the biggest place of abuse amongst your fellow colleagues is the use of multiple ADD / ADHD medications : Adderall and Vyvanse.
According to CNN, recent studies suggest that almost 30 percent of today's college students use ADHD medications. While these drugs are typically beneficial for people who show signs of attention deficiency, those who usually fall under this category aren't necessarily in need of a prescription.
College life sometimes promotes fun over academia, which can make a newly-admitted freshman a bit overwhelmed. Instead of managing their time efficiently, kids start buying Adderall off of those with ADHD to create "study hours," where they are hyper-focused for hours on end, awaiting a crash after 7-8 hours of the drug's effects overtaking their consciousness.
This may seem like the answer to all of your problems, but one thing we tend to forget is that all of these pills are still drugs. Adderall is a highly-addictive substance, and a dependency could possibly lead to greater problems. The ADHD medication keeps you up for hours, causing short-lived insomnia. Appetite suppression is also fairly common, leading to severe weight loss. With its "upper" quality, college kids will start to ingest the drug before drinking in order to be wired and awake for hours of partying. Mixing the depressing qualities of alcohol and the amphetamine-like qualities of adderrall could be damaging; even fatal.
This article isn't meant to be seen as a "don't do drugs" campaign, but rather an awareness to the fact that this drug has festered amongst college campuses, and may be here to stay. It's difficult to process how much ADHD medication can affect your life, but it is, in fact, a very real problem.
Instead of trying to hide under the "wonder pill," it's important to realize the problem at hand. Students should be taught how to schedule themselves more efficiently, rather than worrying about the newest thing that's happening on campus. College is very fun, but at the end of the day, we must realize that academics are the primary source of knowledge and reasoning.
Let's crack open a book before finals so we can enjoy the holidays in great spirits.
