After spending an entire sleepless night writing her final paper for a summer course at Harvard while still in high school, Sophie faced a choice between sleeping off her late-night study streak or taking a shortcut.
“One of my friends was like, ‘Here, take this and you can stay up tomorrow and we can hang out,'” said Sophie, a School of Management sophomore who asked her name be changed for this article.
Eager to spend their last day together, Sophie said she and her friend crushed up a blue Adderall pill, snorted the powder and spent nine wide-awake hours shopping in Harvard Square.
Though she spent that day before her senior year in high school out and about, Sophie nevertheless thought of Adderall – the most popular of drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – again before her first final exam at Boston University, this time as a study aid. She said the pills, intended to treat ADHD, helped her cram in pages of material after days of procrastinating.
Though students describe non-prescribed “smart pills” as a way to get the easy A, an ongoing study suggests so-called brain steroids could actually hurt students’ grades in the long run.
In a study that followed some members of the 2004 freshman class at an unnamed mid-Atlantic university, researchers at the University of Maryland’s Center for Drug Abuse Research surveyed 1,253 students on their use and opinions of a host of drugs, including ADHD medications.
The study reported students who took drugs intended to treat ADHD without a prescription were more likely to abuse other illicit drugs as well that tend to take time away from studying.
“You might pass that test, but over time it does not improve your GPA,” said lead researcher Amelia Arria.
To provide a broader picture of American college students, drug experts say more research remains to be done about ADHD medications. Most comprehensive national studies have focused on high school students, and even those studies tend to classify misuse of ADHD medications with other prescription drugs.
As health authorities withhold broad conclusions on the topic, however, several government studies have shown ADHD medications growing in popularity both among patients prescribed them and students sold or given them.
Adderall and the longer-lasting Adderall XR have been dispensed more than 100 million times since approval for children in 1996, according to a representative from their manufacturer, Shire Pharmaceuticals.
Now available for all ages and in generic forms, both medications reach millions of users both as prescribed treatments as well as illicit attention boosters for stressed students.
Shire spokesman Matt Cabrey said his company uses warning labels and grants to college drug education programs to discourage non-Adderall users from abusing the medication.
Cabrey said the vast majority of prescriptions are for Adderall XR, which is “harder to abuse” because it is coated in plastic, making it harder for students to snort. While some students, like Sophie, snort the medication, it can also be taken orally.
Despite students’ claims that ADHD prescriptions are easy to obtain even for patients without the disorder, Cabrey downplayed the public perception of widespread abuse.
“We trust the system and that physicians can accurately diagnose ADHD,” he said.
In fact, Cabrey said because ADHD diagnosis is newer than other psychiatric disorders, this may lead the condition to be under-diagnosed especially among adults, citing examples of parents who found they had the disorder after taking their children to specialists for evaluation.
Boston Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Steven Parker said he looks for signs of poor academics, testy relationships and “always being yelled at and cast aside” when he considers prescribing ADHD medication to children.
Though he said he has not prescribed the drugs to adolescents, Parker said students who take the pills outside of a physician’s care risk allergic reactions, high blood pressure and even going “a little crazy” after prolonged misuse.
Students who misuse ADHD medications hoping for an academic edge akin to “Barry Bonds taking steroids” may also become disillusioned, Parker added, noting school work only becomes harder with age.
Still, many students said they take drugs like Adderall not to sharpen their minds as much as to relieve the stress of last-minute cramming.
“It felt good to be doing the work rather than [worrying], ‘Oh my God, I have to study today,'” said College of Arts and Sciences junior Sean Holmes. “It just blew right by.”
Holmes, who said he took Adderall twice without a prescription to study for math midterms, noted the fast, focused feeling many students cite as a leg up in preparing for major tests.
After taking the pills, however, Holmes said he received roughly the same grades as he did on other assignments from the same class when he did not take the medication. He said he does not plan to take Adderall again.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said students should not take prescription drugs under any circumstances unless approved by a doctor.
“I have no knowledge that it’s a problem of widespread abuse, and if there are people engaged in that activity, then they need to contact Boston University police,” Riley said.
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