A cup of coffee or a large soft drink used to be enough to fuel a student's all-night study session, but a new phenomenon has emerged, and students are now turning to prescription drugs Adderall and Ritalin to get their academic fixes.
Dr. Valerie Robinson, an assistant professor with the department of neuropsychiatry and a child psychiatrist with the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, said she believes the abuse of Adderall and Ritalin is a national problem, not a problem localized to Tech.
"Students are using the amphetamines as a stimulant to maintain alertness and energy," she said.
Adderall and Ritalin when used properly combat the effects of attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder.
Physicians are quickly becoming aware of the new trend of students abusing Adderall and Ritalin as stimulants to stay awake and study.
Sara Pierce, a sophomore business major from Dallas, said many of her friends have taken Adderall.
"They always usually take it around finals time 'cause it makes you study and focus for hours," she said. "You can pretty much get it from anywhere - I have seen a lot of people take it like it's candy."
Caffeinated beverages and popular caffeine pills like No-Doz used to be students' allies when it came to long study sessions, but Adderall is rapidly becoming the new drug of choice, because not only does it keep users awake for long periods of time, but it allows them to stay focused without the jittery effects caffeine products sometimes cause.
Robinson said students sometimes have the misconception that Adderall affects people who legitimately need it differently than people who abuse it.
"Adderall is going to react the same way with every person whether an individual needs it or not. It makes students stay awake and study because they take it at night - if you are prescribed to Adderall, you are supposed to take it in the morning - so ultimately Adderall is supposed to last a patient all day, but when students abuse it and take it at night, it makes them have the effects it would have had if they took it in the morning," she said.
Students who abuse Adderall will build up a tolerance to the drug and eventually have to increase their dosage to reap the same effects, Robinson said.
Mandy Baker, the coordinator of external relations for the Center for the Study of Addiction, said physicians monitoring the prescriptions of Adderall and Ritalin is important.
"People with prescriptions are selling their pills to people who don't need them, so it is definitely important that doctors know how much and how often patients are asking for new prescriptions to Adderall and Ritalin," she said.
Maj. Gordon Hoffman with the Texas Tech Police Department said there is a hefty fine for possession of Adderall or Ritalin without a prescription.
According to the Texas Criminal and Traffic Penal Code, possession of an amphetamine without a prescription is a second degree, third degree or state jail felony.
The degree of felony is decided by how much of the drug is in possession with a second-degree felony being the harshest punishment of not more than 20 years or fewer than two years of imprisonment.
Robinson said people who legitimately need Adderall or Ritalin usually don't abuse it.
"If someone truly needs Adderall or Ritalin they cant function without it - so they are unlikely to sell their pills to other people cause they truly need it. Physicians try to use a high index of suspicion when prescribing Ritalin and Adderall," she said.
Pierce said she doesn't think students taking Adderall or Ritalin is a major problem.
"It's not like they are taking it (Adderall) to get high - they are taking it to study and make good grades, so the benefits of Adderall are in their favor," she said.
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