Getting the drugs Cafeo, a junior, wonders how many older students getting prescriptions for the first time really need them. She said she has fended off too many fellow students wanting her drugs and then faking the attention deficit symptoms. One friend started taking Adderall without a prescription and quickly ramped up to taking an entire month's worth of pills in about 10 days. When the friend could no longer find reliable sources for that much Adderall, she convinced a doctor to write her a prescription. "All you have to do is read a book on ADHD and you know what to tell a doctor," Cafeo said. "Now a lot of kids get it by saying they have a problem studying." Students who have tried the drug illegally will come in seeking prescriptions for it, said James A. Cox, director of the University of Pittsburgh counseling center. He typically refers them first to the Academic Support Center for help with time management skills and study strategies. Attention deficit disorder is generally associated with childhood, but some students don't realize they have problems until they reach college, said Anita Barkin, director of Student Health Services at Carnegie Mellon University. Living on campus and faced with more intense academic pressures, some students find they cannot control their environment enough to compensate for their lack of focus.
Tracking useFew experts are tracking misuse of Adderall. The federal Drug Abuse Warning Network has seen an increase in emergency room visits involving dextroamphetamine, a main ingredient in Adderall, said Leah Young, spokeswoman for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. But the numbers, she warns, are too small to mean much to researchers. Hospitals often lump dextroamphetamine with other amphetamines and methamphetamines. Despite those limitations, the numbers of emergency room visits related to dextroamphetamine rose nationally to 1,355 in 2002 from 635 in 2000 and just 261 in 1999.
In all, there were 670,000 drug-related emergency room visits in 2002. Allegheny General Hospital, on the North Side, has treated two people in the past year for adverse reactions to attention deficit disorder drugs, said Dr. Fred Harchelroad, chairman of emergency medicine. Both patients came in with a rapid heart beat and an increased sense of anxiety. "They had gotten (the drugs) from friends who might have been a little more well-versed in using them," Harchelroad said. "They took one or two more than they should have."
Officials at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, Carlow College and Point Park University said they are aware of the potential abuse of Adderall. But no local college reported any overdoses. "Adderall and Ritalin are getting to be drugs of choice for students who believe they will enhance their performance on tests or help them study more effectively," said Barkin at Carnegie Mellon University. The school does not have any "hard or fast evidence" about students abusing the drugs, she said, but has heard enough rumors and anecdotal reports to know it's taking place. The university is conducting a survey of students' use of Adderall, Ritalin and other prescription stimulants, Barkin said.
Some students at the University of Pittsburgh said they know of people who use Adderall in crunch times. The university, like many others, conducts anonymous surveys about whether students are abusing alcohol and drugs. It declined to provide the results. "We're not seeing it as an issue on this campus," said Marcee Radakovich, director of Student Health Services.
Trying stimulants A survey of students at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus found 20 percent of the students with Adderall prescriptions had abused the drug, shared it with friends or sold it, Heiligenstein said. A quarter of college-age students, meanwhile, have tried stimulants such as Ritalin or Adderall without prescriptions, said Dr. Tim Wilens, a psychopharmacologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Wilens recently finished a research paper that cites a survey of undergraduates at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, finding that 4 percent had abused amphetamine compounds, 7 percent Ritalin and 24 percent both.
The federal government does not survey students on Adderall abuse, but has followed non-prescription use of Ritalin by high school and college students in recent years. Nearly 5 percent of college students in 2003 said they had tried Ritalin without prescriptions in the previous 12 months, according to the annual, federally financed Monitoring the Future study conducted by the University of Michigan. Abuse among college students was nearly twice that of non-students of the same age.
Younger users There's also anecdotal evidence of Adderall abuse starting at a younger age. Bethel Park police arrested eight high school freshmen and a sophomore in February for trading Adderall and two other prescription drugs. A teacher caught one of the students snorting a crushed pill in a school bathroom, said Jim Modrak, a school resource police officer. Students are not supposed to carry even their own aspirin on campus, Modrak said, but the ADHD drugs are so prevalent it's hard to keep them out of the wrong hands. "With students having a legitimate access to this medication, there is going to be plenty of opportunity for misuse and possible illegal use of the medication," Modrak said. On college campuses where students typically maintain their own prescriptions, it can be difficult to uncover abuse, experts said. "It's virtually impossible to police that," the University of Wisconsin's Heiligenstein said. "As with other prescription medicines, you don't have to go to a seedy part of town to buy it."
ADHD drugs Who's abusing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs? A quarter of college-age students have tried stimulants such as Ritalin or Adderall without prescriptions, said Dr. Tim Wilens, a psychopharmacologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Four percent of college students have tried amphetamine compounds, 7 percent Ritalin and 24 percent both types in a survey of undergraduates at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. A fifth of the students prescribed Adderall abused the drug, shared it with friends or sold it, according to a survey of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nearly 5 percent of college students in 2003 said they had tried Ritalin without prescriptions in the previous 12 months, according to the annual, federally financed Monitoring the Future study conducted by the University of Michigan. Abuse among college students was nearly twice that of nonstudents of the same age.
Andrew Conte can be reached at
aconte@tribweb.com or (412) 765-2312.
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