According to media reports, it's the latest and greatest craze on competitive college campuses across the country! What are we speaking of? The use of stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, that are typically prescribed for ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), by normal (often overachieving!) college students to improve their academic performance, or just to stay up all night studying or writing papers.Check out this video on the topic.
Also read this piece (profs helper.pdf) from the journal Nature.
Search the Web a bit and read some media reports about the alarming rates of abuse of these drugs. Tell us some particulars of what you found in your comments to this blog.
Finally, tell us what you think about the ethical issues involved? Does any of this seem relevant for you as graduate students? What about from teh perspective of medical students? Or undergraduates trying to get into med school? Any problems with people just trying to get a little edge on the competition in this way?
This is a tough one. The point made about caffeine
ReplyDeleteuse is very relevant, but does caffeine hold a candle to Aderall or Ritalin? I'm not sure but I doubt it.
I am not sure if I would consider it cheating or unfair to use such drugs because the playing field is not necessarily level any way, some are better at focusing and retaining knowledge than others. However I do believe you are doing yourself a disservice if you use or abuse these "enhancers". With most drug use comes dependence, if you don't get your morning Aderall are you going to be a zombie all day?
Just say no.
If you have these drugs staring you in the face off of your shelf, and they aren't prescription, you probably had the problem before you decided to wait till the last three hours to type the 20 page paper. There are other issues here as well. Ten years ago it was effedrine, before that is was some other sort of speed. This isn't new and it will keep happening regardless of the name of the product.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing if your professor tells you that you have to do something in three hours that usually takes three days you can say no. In the professional world if you let people do that to you and you can't perform to impossible standards you are the failure. If you point out that everyone is being held to impossible standards, the maker of the standard is the failure.
I think it is a grey area, since the academic pressures can sometimes be too much for a student to handle. I found a brief article about the use of the ADHD drugs at Duke and they said around 5 % of the student population was using these drugs. Duke is considred an "ivy league" school so the academic pressures faced by the students maybe too much for them. The article also noted that the population most likely to use the drugs without a prescription, are members of the Greek life. These groups often have large time obligations, do to their affliation with Greek organizations. There is also a depdency issue, the affects of some of these drugs have been compared to Meth, and people have become addicted to these substances. By using these drugs and then becoming dependent on them the studenet is doing themselves a great disservice.
ReplyDeleteFirst off this is a topic which I feel will generate a good deal of worthwhile discussion in class tonight.
ReplyDeleteI start my post with a question. If everyone is cheating is it still cheating? I would argue that artificially/ chemically or medicinally enhancing one's ability above that of "normal" individuals need be considered cheating for the fact that if we don't as a society take a hard line on non-prescribed steroids or cognitive enhancing drugs we are setting a dangerous precedent and creating an atmosphere of anything goes in America.
Yes, college is a difficult social and academic environment but for years students traversed the halls without the aid of these new drugs. And for the argument that air-traffic controller's and pilot's jobs necessitates the use of drugs. What does that say about our work force when we schedule our workers to perform these jobs for so long that many feel like they need cogitative enhancers just to make it through their shift.
From an ethical standpoint, I have no problem with certain people taking cognitive enhancers. Individuals suffering from dementia, severe forms of ADHD which limit basic daily functions and of course people suffering from Alzheimer's desire the chance to live full and productive lives. Individuals who are taking the drug for an competitive edge I am less likely to back up. Overall perhaps we should blame the system: the idea that tests determine our lot in life, that competition drives everything we do. Ethically and morally speaking, most of the people that take Ritalin and Aderall probably are simply taking it to stay afloat so to speak academically and wouldn't take the drug if they didn't feel as though society/ graduate classes/ and the workforce standards weren't causing them to feel like they had to get an additional mental and cognitive edge.
It is surprising that people in our society think that they can pop a pill and change something about themselves, whether it is for focus or weight-loss. Whatever people take to enhance themselves, chances are it only works for a little while. Then they have to take more and more. As for students taking Ritalin for focus, an article I read stated that, “Ten percent of college students use stimulants illegally at some point in their college years,” and “the number of emergency room visits stemming from illicit use of pharmaceuticals jumped 20 percent between 2004 and 2005.” These are some scary facts. I can’t understand why anyone would risk their life for a grade. Another issue the article mentioned was that many pills students are buying may not even be Ritalin or Aderall, which poses an even bigger threat.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think academic pressures are being too much to handle are reason enough to take pills. One of the points of college is to learn how to manage and prioritize. If you spend too much time at the bar and couldn’t finish your paper you have no one to blame but yourself. It was surprising to read about professors popping pills. It’s not something I thought about before. Then I remember hearing stories about soccer moms taking their children’s Ritalin to get high or deal with their soccer mom stresses.
Just like in high school, drug education needs to be a continued into college (and apparently beyond.) We always hear about the dangers of alcohol, now it’s time to add prescription med risks.
Ok, I found a bunch of abuse reports. However I chose to focus on the study done by the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center. This study showed how college student use of illegal stimulants have increased every year since 2004. According to the federal government's Drug Abuse Warning Network, "the number of emergency room visits stemming from illicit use of pharmaceuticals jumped 20 percent between 2004 and 2005"(Teitelbaum, 2007,medicalnewstoday.com). Dr. Teitelbaum went onto state that the students who abused the drug, those who needed to cram or catch up, actually performed worse in school.
ReplyDeleteI have never actually used any pharmaceutical enhancements so I can't really judge. I still believe that you can't take a magic pill and expect to pass a class. As for the actual use of Ritalin, I think it is up to the user. I don't think it is ethically immoral, but I may be wrong. I understand some people need that extra edge. Even if you ban it, they will find it and use it. I mean there isn't a studying hall of fame. There won't be an asterisk next to your name for studier of the year, like they are possibly going to do for sports. However, colleges could flag students who used the drug and grade them a different way than the others, but that seems like a big mess.
The pharmaceutical companies pander to everyone's paranoia. Today, it seems that there is a drug for everything. Even if nothing is wrong with you, them make you feel like you need it.
One of my sites stated that Ritalin can cause cardiovascular failure or seizures. Sorry, but when I see that I don't really care about the ethics or the possible benefits of the drug.
"People find this drug enticing because they can get their academic work done quicker or do more in a shorter period of time," said Dr. Eric Heiligenstein, of the University of Wisconsin. (CNN.Com, Jan 1, 2001) Increased performance through the use of a Drug, where have we heard that before? Now this trend has spilled over from pro-sports into the world of academia. Is this cheating? I do not believe it is. It is a problem, absolutely. Abuse of any drug is a problem. While at college I knew of a large number of students that used "vitamin R" to get through the long nights of study. Three of these people are now at med school, Two at Harvard, One at Yale. It makes we increasingly nervous that future physicians needed this drug to get into school. This is the case in undergrad and into Med school it must be the case in grad school. I think it goes to show one point above all else. Not everyone is cut out to be college /grad school student. As the video says, the measure of success is a college degree, from a prestigious university. It is unfair to pressure all students to continue on to college. It not only hurts the students, forcing then to take alternative measures to get through school, but it also effects the education given to other students, forcing a decrease in academics rigor. All in all if a student takes drugs to get through school the fault for said abuse is the students alone.
ReplyDeleteSorry guys I have no idea what happened by uvmfencer is Andrew Beaupre..
ReplyDeleteI was wondering who uvmfencer was!
ReplyDeleteThe issue of performance-enhancing drugs is not a new one in the U.S., but seems to be increasing in frequency. So many students are using Ritalin or some other stimulant to focus on homework or to stay up all night to study or write a paper. These pills are so easy to get, whether from a doctor or your best friend, that they seem like an easy fix. I have a lot of friends who can't function a day without their regular dose of Ritalin and it becomes almost a joke to them. I have friends who stay out all night partying and show up to work in the morning just fine because of the pills that they take. I support the use of stimulants in the case of ADHD or Alzheimer's for obvious reasons, but using them to try and catch up on schoolwork or to help with a hangover just doesn't make sense to me.
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ReplyDeleteI don't know when this was posted. I only found it this afternoon. I wasn't up yesterday.
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But, experts caution, Ritalin and Adderall also do some things that are not helpful, and may, in fact, be dangerous. Both drugs alter certain chemicals in the brain, increase blood pressure, as well as blood glucose and heart rate, and constrict blood vessels. They can suppress appetite and can keep people awake when their bodies need sleep. With continued use, warn experts, there is an increased risk of paranoia, heart attack, or seizure. In other words, there are good reasons that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classifies these drugs as Schedule II, along with PCP, oxycontin, and cocaine.
ReplyDeleteDavid McBride, director of Student Health Services, says that at this time of year he does occasionally talk with students who admit to taking a friend’s Adderall to help study. “Stimulants help people stay awake longer,” says McBride. “The trouble is, they disturb your sleep, they can make you jittery, you may have racing thoughts, difficulty sleeping, and further difficulty concentrating. Using something like this, you may get more than you bargained for.”
Bring on the drugs!!!! No, not really, but I do have a pretty libertarian view of the role the government should play in regulating the drug use in our life. I feel that most drugs (that excludes smack and heroin, sorry Andy) should be legalized for citizens over the age of 25. I also think the drinking and smoking age should be raised to that age as well. The fact that there is even much of a debate over something as harmless as aderol really brings me down about the state of our society and its views on drugs. We can't even watch a football game without having to see five thousand viagra ads, a drug that can cause blindess, but something that helps us work harder and BETTER with almost no risk to the responsible user is so hotly debated. I thought we were CAPITALISTS for crying out loud! I'm suprised the government isn't passing this out along with rebate checks as part of their new stimulus plan to get both the mood and output of the American worker up there with the Japanese.
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