The word on the street is that there's a drug that can transform even the biggest bum into a studying machine. Without a legal prescription, you can obtain it only if you know the right people. Its market is not unlike that of underground marijuana, and it is considered by some the academic steroid. \nWith finals approaching and not enough time to prepare for them, some students may wish that those precious hours of sleep could instead be used for studying. An alarming number of IU students are doing just that by buying, selling and consuming Ritalin and Adderall, medications that are normally prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Disorder. These drugs, when used by students without ADD, are said to increase concentration, length of study time and retention of information.\nFor the most part, the type of students who take the drugs represent two extremes: the procrastinator, who tries to make up for lost time, and the over-achiever, who doesn't have enough time to study in the first place. \nKevin*, a senior, has tried Adderall and Stacker 2, also known as ephedra, to help him study. \n"What else could help you study all night and walk into a test the next morning with no sleep and your mind is completely lucid?" he said. "You take the test and you're still awake for hours after that."\nThe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported in October that 25 percent of college-age students have tried drugs like Ritalin or Adderall without prescriptions. But Roger Wilcox, a Bloomington resident whose name has been changed for confidentiality, has been selling such drugs to IU students for years, and believes this statistic is low compared to IU.\n"It's way more than that here at IU," he said. "Just ask your friends. I bet five out of six have tried it at least to some degree. No joke." \nWilcox said that he was prescribed Ritalin when he was young, but he was embarrassed to be on it. \n"I hated the (pills) and I used to pretend that I took it and hid it from my parents," he said. "Then there was a boom for the stuff in 2000 or so. All of a sudden kids on the East Coast were going crazy for the shit. I just saw it as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone." \nWilcox said that most of the people at IU who sold these study drugs were probably students who were selling their own prescription for a little extra cash. He also said that Adderall was more popular than Ritalin because people tended to see it as more helpful and less harmful. \nMost of the students who took Ritalin or Adderall attested to the success of the drugs as a study aid. They said they could study for hours without being distracted. Some reported only minor success with Ritalin. However, most of these students seemed to show confusion on the side effects of these drugs.
The Side Effects\nGeorge Rebec, director of Neuralscience at IU, cited several negative, short-term and long-term side effects of study drugs.\n"With a single use, as with most stimulants, you may experience changes in blood pressure, changes in heart rate, and insomnia, and if you already have problems like hypertension, you can have a real problem," he said.\nRebec said long-term use of these drugs can lead to psychosis, paranoia and a mental condition similar to schizophrenia. There may be loss of neurons and symptoms will not be unlike speed-addicts, since speed is essentially amphetamines, and Adderall is made from a combination of amphetamines.\n"The longer you're on it, the likelier you would be to develop paranoid tendencies," Rebec said. \nKevin, who took Stacker 2 three to four times a day, three to four times a week for four months in the spring of 2003, developed a potentially fatal heart condition, which had to be fixed by a surgical procedure, as a result of the drug. Kevin said he first noticed something was wrong when he was playing basketball. Before taking a shot, he said he would feel his heart rate increase to what felt like 200 beats per minute. \n"It was scary as hell," he said. \nKevin didn't know that he had a heart condition until after taking Stacker 2. Doctors told him the ephedra had aggravated a minor condition he didn't know existed.\nRebec said that both Ritalin and Adderall were considered addictive, though Ritalin was not as strongly as addictive as Adderall because it is not made of amphetamines. \nMost students believe Ritalin and Adderall are safe because they know many children who had taken it for long periods of time. But Rebec said this is a myth.\n"I don't think any drug is safe, I don't care who prescribes it," he said. "The drugs may react differently in a child than an adult. The drugs may react differently in people with ADD than with people without. I think that's a reason for doing more research on this, because it's not clear what the long-term effects are." \nHe mentioned the cases in which anti-depressants were recently found to lead to suicide increases as a comparison to treatments in ADD. He also said that the use of amphetamines by students has been around ever since amphetamines were invented in the 1930s.
Recreational Uses\nAdderall, when crushed and snorted, can also be used to achieve a high. When used in this way, it should be considered no different from "harder" drugs, such as speed. Wilcox said he definitely knows of students who use it for this purpose.\n"Some of these frat boys are obsessed with that (stuff)," he said. "I mean it's tough to say, but I think they think it's more manly or something. I know kids that snort it and then study. I know kids that snort it to snort it."\nWhen asked if he believed Adderall to be a gateway drug, he said that was definitely untrue. He believed that students who snorted Adderall to achieve a high were ones that already have tried other, harder drugs. Students using these drugs to study don't spontaneously snort them.\n"People take Ritalin and Adderall usually for one reason," he said. "To benefit themselves in school."\nThe going price for Ritalin is said to be $2 to $3 a pill, and for Adderall, $4 to $5 a pill, according to students. \n-- Contact staff writer Lydia Song at lsong@indiana.edu.\n* Last name withheld to protect the source's privacy
