After talking about it in class, I became more interested in the topic of adderall. In high school, this was a common type of stimulant easily found among our peers, especially among mine. Whether it was for the midterm exams, finals, or the SAT, students were buying adderall left and right. I for one have never taken it, nor do I feel the need to. However, I always wondered what the big hype was, and if this hype would die down when I got to college…

What the drug does is increase attention spans , meaning it keeps you focused and controls your activity. Adderall is a stimulant that is prescribed to people with ADHD and also to treat narcolepsy. If you don’t have either of these, you shouldn’t be taking Adderall, unless you are prescribed for other medical reasons. However, so many people do anyways. How are all of these people getting access to this drug? Well, people who have it sell it.

In high school, kids were selling these pills everywhere, and if I really wanted to have it, I easily could. Now that I am in college, I’ve wondered if it’s the same. Is it still just as popular? According to this article , Adderall is the second most common form of drug use on college campuses. According to CNN Its been found that full-time college students are two times more likely to use Adderall when they aren’t prescribed it to people who are not full time students. This same research found that almost 30% of students at universities use stimulants, such as Adderall, non-medically. This is considered to be abuse especially since it is not being taken to treat something. 90% of these users are doing it for concentrating while studying, and similar purposes to this.

Need to focus on studying for that chemistry exam…?

The one scary thing about this abuse is that taking Adderall affects your frontal cortex . This part of your brain is responsible for things like focusing, problem solving, planning, etc. For those who abuse this drug, it can damage this part of your brain and the amount of dopamine that is produced.

What I have taken away from this is that the use of Adderall is still evident in colleges. The amount of Adderall being abused in the nation is rising. What you should take away from this is that if you aren’t prescribed Adderall, don’t take it. In the long run, you are just going to be harming yourself. Turn off your phone and close Facebook while studying. It’s not as hard as it may seem!