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Students prescribed ADHD medication face pressure to sell

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It is 7 p.m. the night before most students' finals are scheduled to begin. Sophomore accounting major Jonathan Roberts finds himself sitting in the study of his fraternity house attempting to relearn all of the material he has forgotten this semester. During his study session, at least three of his fraternity brothers interrupt him and ask if they can buy some of his Adderall.

Roberts was prescribed the medication when he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder three years ago. Before entering college, people never bothered him about his prescription.

"There's something about the college setting," he said. "Word spreads that Adderall is a miracle drug and everyone believes it."

Even though he is constantly pressured to sell his pills, he refuses to do so because he takes one every day. Without it, he has a hard time concentrating and understanding his class material.

"Because the capsules help people focus," sophomore journalism major Catie Stanford said, "they are very appealing to many college students, especially during the last few weeks of school."

Stanford said students wait until the end of the semester to start on projects and want an extra boost to help them finish their assignments. Stanford has been on Adderall since she was in sixth grade. Like Roberts, potential buyers bombard her during finals week. She has been offered as much as $20 for one tablet of the "magic drug."

University of Memphis Counseling Center psychology intern Cindy Joseph believes that many of the students on campus use the stimulant as a study aid and fail to realize that it is illegal without a prescription. Adderall is a Class III narcotic, and, according to Shelby County Sheriff Michael Norton, students who are caught buying or selling the drug will be arrested and prosecuted.

According to the FDA, Adderall consumption comes with many potential side effects such as heart attack, stroke and circulation problems, even for people who are prescribed. These side effects are more likely to happen when the user does not have a prescription for it.

For example, one student, whose identity was withheld, said he knows people who took the medication without a prescription. He said they stayed alert for days at a time. A few of his friends have even gone as long as three nights without sleep after using Adderall.

For junior Mike Simonetti, the negative effects of the drug outweighed the positives, and he stopped taking it. Even though he has taken the stimulant since the fourth grade, he started to abuse it in college by taking it before studying for tests.

"I can probably count on one hand how much sleep I got during last semester's final exams," Simonetti said.

His lack of sleep went in vain. According to Simonetti, he thought he was going to do well on his finals because he stayed up studying. The opposite ended up happening. By the time his exams were in front of him, he was mentally exhausted and couldn't remember a thing he learned the night before. He didn't fail any of his tests, but he did just as well as he would have without compromising a night's rest.

This semester's finals will be his first taken without using the prescription stimulant. The junior said he no longer needs the "cheap man's meth" to study for his tests. He has already started preparing for his exams and said procrastination and Adderall are things of the past.

Simonetti hopes that students will realize the negatives associated with the drug before they form an addiction or delve into other amphetamines in search of the feeling they receive from Adderall. He added that there have been addictions so extreme that students end up committing suicide.

"I would hate for something like that to happen on our campus," Simonetti said.

 


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