SHS strict with Adderall prescriptions

For students with attention deficit disorder, Boston University Student Health Services prescribes long-term, controlled substances like ADD medicine but requires considerable amounts of paperwork to ensure students to not resell extra pills for students to use recreationally.
‘As physicians, we try to be objective and prescribe the appropriate medication for a patient’s condition,’ SHS Director David McBride said. ‘For students who are prescribed longer-term controlled substances, we require that students sign a contract outlining their responsibility in taking the medication as it is prescribed.’
Because ADD medicine is a stimulant and can be abused, controlling who has access to it is a common decision, said Matt Cabrey, a spokesman for Shire Pharmaceuticals, which markets the ADD medication Adderall.
‘You’re looking at Adderall being used as an ‘academic steroid,” Cabrey said.
McBride said he was doubtful that prescription drug diversion is a serious issue at BU.
‘In the scope of things, alcohol overuse is much more worrisome,’ he said in an email.
Still, students say SHS requires that they make a considerable effort to obtain the medications because of the added risk of people selling the drugs. Arianne Staples, a College of Communication senior, said she found trouble when she visited SHS in August for an appointment to get a prescription to treat her ADD.
Staples left empty handed. She said her physician told her that she could not prescribe the medicine, and that Staples would have to find another doctor.
‘She told me, ‘We don’t know what you’re going to do with them,” Staples said. ‘Then she said, ‘People often sell these things.”
Staples said when she asked about therapy options to treat depression, the physician said that they did not offer them. When Staples asked for a referral, the physician did not recommend any other specialists outside of BU, she said.
SHS recently sent out an email to students who reported a history of mental illness earlier this semester, informing them that the clinic provides ‘both medical and mental health sections,’ has clinicians who ‘can address many common problems that college students encounter’ and can offer referrals within ‘connecting health networks,’ according to the email.
Staples said she laughed when she received that email.
‘It’s just a joke,’ she said. ‘I felt abandoned. For all they know, I could still not have found medication or help.’
Staples said she did not receive any paperwork from SHS toward earning her ADD medication, and McBride declined to comment on Staples’ particular situation because of doctor-patient confidentiality requirements.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center of Bioethics Director Lisa Lehmann said preventing abuse is important, but physicians should always think of the patient’s needs first.
‘The truth is that not using a particular drug with the possibility of abuse is OK if an alternative is prescribed,’ Lehmann, a Harvard University Medical School assistant professor, said. ‘The important thing here is assessing the most appropriate treatment, and the primary factor is what is going to most effectively treat your problem. We have an ethical obligation to not abandon patients.’