The pill bottle is opened. Three students circle around several lines of a crushed up yellow substance. The occasion is a late night study session, the drug of choice: Adderall. This fictitious story is an unfortunate reality, deeply wired into the circuits of higher education. College campuses house an outbreak of prescription drug abuse. A sturdy foundation of overly prescribed stimulants crossed with the high educational demand classes represent, pose as a major issues for universities. Not only have studies been performed proving the abuse of psycho-stimulant drugs dangerous to student’s health, but also the transactions behind such abuse are highly illegal. This is an ethical issue formulated by a society’s willingness to accept or abuse pills, and the rate which doctors are willing to prescribe medications. Psycho-stimulants began being used to treat ADHD in the 1930’s when it was first observed to have positive effects on hyper activity. It was next synthesized in the form of Ritalin in 1957. This was prescribed to people who had issues with attentiveness and hyperactivity and is still prescribed today. Early stimulants were altered into amphetamine/lisdexamphetamine in drugs such as Adderall and Vyvanse. In recent years, stimulants have had an increase in their prescription rates leading to a nationwide, as well as University problem. Adderall is a focus drug and higher education demands student’s focus more than anything. This is a recipe for disaster which is about to boil over if action is not taken to end this problem. This problem is morally impermissible. Ethics require that Universities provide some sort of education system about the drugs being abused in order to raise awareness to the health implications which ... ... middle of paper ... ...ications Co., n.d. Web. 24 Apr 2014. . Ricker, Ronald, and Venus Nicolino. "Adderall: The Most Abused Drug In America." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com Inc, 21 Jun 2010. Web. 23 Apr 2014. . Schwarz, Alan. "A.D.H.D Seen in 11% of U.S. Children as Diagnoses Rise." . The New York Times Company, 13 Mar 2013. Web. 25 Apr 2014. . Schwarz, Alan. "Risky Rise of the Good Grade Pill." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 09 Jun 2012. Web. 23 Apr 2014. .
This is said with the idea that even though Adderall is a Schedule II Substance, it doesn’t seem as dangerous or serious as heroin. A big part in the philosophy of this is because it’s extremely easy to obtain on college campuses. In an interview done by Hercampus.com, Amanda states that, “On my campus, […] Adderall is extremely easy to find. Sometimes you don’t even have to ask for it if your friends take it regularly and study with you often […] People will try to sell [Adderall] to get cash for laundry money” (Gladu 2015). Even though it’s a Schedule II drug, a nationwide survey showed that it’s only considered as “very dangerous” by two percent of students. The survey also showed that the percent of student that believe nonmedical use of Adderall is “not dangerous at all” or only “slightly dangerous” is a whopping eighty-one percent (Zadrozny 2015). In short, the students that take Adderall don’t see how it can affect them because they are getting the drug from their friend, or classmate, and not in some dark alleyway associated with the more intense
She uses many logical appeals to charm the readers’ sense of reasoning by relating some of the key points in her story to the average college student. She includes valid appeals like “Since in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible” (para. 1), or “Alex recalled one week during his junior year when he had four term papers due” (para. 3). Margaret provides a lot of examples from Alex as to why students should be taking these drugs. They are becoming more and more widespread because school has only continued to get more difficult for incoming generations. The stress and despair is wrecking the hope of our society, making them feel as if they are only drowning in work every day of the week. More so, these just lead to damage amongst the minds of the college student, which is very negative to our society. They feel the need to take Adderall to better themselves academically and to help their state of mind. The image that society is illustrating by taking these drugs is that one cannot do anything on their own, that they need some kind of substance to help them. Talbot successfully displays the negative impact on students by providing these quotes and stories that degrade the character of any scholar. Margaret accurately describes the harmful effects of the use of Adderall by providing so many logical appeals that any student could relate to. Any of these appeals provided have the ability to convince her audience that neuroenhancing drugs only cause negative effects as opposed to being beneficial. Talbot seems to have a good background of knowledge on the subject. After all, people wouldn’t be reading her article if she didn’t seem
Typically, almost everyone in the world has taken drugs at some point in their life. Whether it be over the counter medication or prescription drugs. People get sick, they have illness, allegories, sexually transmitted diseases or other aches and pains. As you may already know, there is medication for each aforementioned problem. This is called drug use, which is using drugs for its intended purpose. However, the real dilemma happens when people began to misuse and abuse drugs.
Like Brown, Smith had never taken these prescriptions commonly called “study drugs” before coming to college. Smith cites increasing academic pressure as a reason for using the pills to focus and gain an edge. Both Brown and Smith receive free pills from their friends who have prescriptions but they would expect to pay $2-$5 a pill if they had to. In 2000 , NIDA’s Community Epidemiology Work Group found the abuse of methylphenidate (Ritalin) in Boston to be prevalent amongst middle and high school students; especially in middle- and upper-middle class communities.
Schwarz, Alan. “Risky Rise of the Good-Grade Pill.” New York Times. 10 Jun. 2012: A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Kondro, W. (2005). Inconclusive evidence puts Adderall back on the market. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 173(8), 858. doi:10.1503/cmaj.051145
Prescription stimulant misuse can be defined as taking more of the medication than prescribed, or as taking the medication without a prescription. There have been many arguments on the reasons why there has been an increasing amount of college students who misuse prescription stimulants. Some psychologists argue that the misuse of prescription stimulants amongst college students is caused by stress brought upon by final exams and hard curriculum. However, other psychologists argue that the misuse of prescription stimulants is becoming more common amongst American college students for other reasons such as: differences amongst brain activity in college students, and misconceptions about the true risks of misusing prescription stimulants amongst
Almost everybody on Long Island, and probably all around the world, has been prescribed a drug by a doctor before— whether it was to knock out a nasty virus, or relieve pain post injury or surgery. However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can have highly addictive qualities, and more and more people are becoming hooked, specifically teenagers. But when does harmlessly taking a prescription drug to alleviate pain take the turn into the downward spiral of abuse? The answer to that question would be when the user begins taking the drug for the “high” or good feelings brought along with it—certainly not what it was prescribed for (1). The amount of teens that abuse prescription medications has been rapidly increasing in recent
U.S. News Health – Health Day (May 31, 2013), Many Parents Unaware of Teens’ Abuse of ADHD Drugs, Retrieved from http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/05/31/many-parents-unaware-of-teens-abuse-of-adhd-drugs
Price, Joyce. "DEA restless about Ritalin: doctors are sounding the alarm about a popular drug used to combat attention disorders in kids." Insight on the News 1 July 1996: 39-40.
Sharpe, Katherine. “Medication: The Smart-pill Oversell.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Nature Publishing Group. 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 March 2014.
Another growing fad in the United States is the abuse of prescription drugs. The abuse is being done by not only adults but by teens. The most current trend today is the misuse of cough syrups and prescription medications to produce a “high.” Other medications abused today are stimulants (Ritalin), and benzodiazepines (Xanax). Health Watch (2004) state girls tend to lean towards the medi...
Drug abuse has been a hot topic for our society due to how stimulants interfere with health, prosperity, and the lives of others in all nations. All drugs have the potential to be misapplied, whether obtained by prescription, over the counter, or illegally. Drug abuse is a despicable disease that affects many helpless people. Majority of those who are beset with this disease go untreated due to health insurance companies who neglect and discriminate this issue. As an outcome of missed opportunities of treatments, abusers become homeless, very ill, or even worst, death.
High school students are leaders to younger kids and many others in their community. As a leader these student must show others what good character is like, but instead they are destroying their lives by doing drugs. In the past decade the drug use among high school students is on the rise once again. With the internet, their exposure to drugs is much greater. High school students are convinced that they are able to get away with using drugs. These drug addicts soon influence other students into doing the drugs because there isn’t a rule preventing drug use. In order to protect these student’s future, drug tests must be enforced among all students ensuring a safe environment for students to learn successfully. Allowing random drug testing in high schools will shy away students from trying these harmful drugs. The stop of drug use among high school students is crucial because drugs prevents student from learning leading them to dropping out of high school. Students that become overwhelmed by these harmful drugs will ruin their lives forever, but if steered in the right direction they can be saved.