Addicted to amphetamine

“Now, I’m probably not going to pronounce this right,” my professor warned, slouching in his chair. “Have you guys ever heard of Adderall?”

The class broke into a cacophony of affirmation. My teacher, surprised, asked how many people in the class use or have used the hyperactivity drug. Nearly a third of the class raised their hands. I stared, appalled. One girl, an LSA upperclassman, elaborated.

“I take Adderall before every paper I write,” she explained. “It keeps me focused.” She went on to explain its benefits during academic crunch periods. Another girl, the only one legally prescribed the drug, admitted that she had been approached in the past to sell her Adderall pills for as much as ten to fifteen dollars a piece. She hasn’t sold any to date, she said.

In a college culture historically known for its experimentation, synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine, MDMA, and opioid-based analgesics are still frowned upon as dangerous substitutes to “traditional” drugs such as marijuana and psilocybin. (Thankfully, heroin and cocaine are rarely touched.) At the same time, Adderall has somehow been elevated within the student population as not a “drug” for recreational use, but a legitimate study aid. The casual nature of the use of Adderall for acute concentration from those without Attention Deficit Disorders seems immature and hypocritical within a campus drug culture.

Behind the prescription labels, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical marketing names, Adderall is, quite simply, amphetamine produced by a company for medicinal use. Aside from differences in reliability, Adderall - which I’ll call amphetamine from here on - has had a “street name” for years: speed. If my professor had asked how many of the students used speed, very few of those using Adderall, if any at all, would have raised their hands due to both their own pharmacological ignorance as well as the social stigma surrounding speed. Somehow, a commercial name has made a drug widely available previously on city streets socially acceptable. When I told the students that Adderall was amphetamine, they paid little attention. I can stand ignorance, but I lose all respect for those seemingly addicted by choice. Even though the rest of the class didn’t admit to amphetamine use, I felt as if I was the only one in the room who had never even considered the illicit use of Adderall for studying.

Two girls, however, explained their reason for amphetamine abstinence: their athletic drug tests required them to. After all, amphetamine use could give an athlete an unfair advantage (although due to heart rate acceleration, it’s rarely seen use in athletics.) An athlete on amphetamine could exceed the competition’s natural abilities. Why, then, hasn’t this been extrapolated to academics? Amphetamine use before final exams or during projects improves focus and cognitive function. Technically, they’ve gained an unfair competitive advantage. If I cheat on exams in a traditional manner, I’m expelled; why should amphetamine use during examinations be any more acceptable?

Obviously, the administration will turn a blind eye to their students’ drug abuse. If amphetamine use at a university such as the University of Michigan is exposed as prevalent enough to take action, the anti-amphetamine majority would most definitely cut donations and other University funding. Parents would reduce Michigan’s reputability as an academic institution. Going public with any sort of drug abuse scandal could ruin the University in many ways, although none of the amphetamine problems are really the fault of the University.

Sooner or later, as ignorant abuse of amphetamines increases proportionally with its social acceptance, the stimulant’s side effects will begin to kill students. As parents attack the school for their lack of proper guidance, a tarnished University will be forced into drug-testing their students, much to the students’ own revolt. Those with the money (i.e., the parents) will win, and traditional experimentation will cease entirely. It’s a crisis that doesn’t seem to be able to be solved without catastrophe, and it will be ignored from both the administration and the students for as long as possible. Those, like me, who don’t use amphetamines, will face increasing academic competition as well as social pressure until something stops amphetamine’s increasing prevalence.

Although I may not be able to do anything about the crisis - my attempts at Adderall = amphetamine awareness have fallen upon deaf ears - I’ve lost a serious amount of respect for not only my classmates using the drug but for the student body in general. As for that girl in my class, the 90’s alt-rock band Everclear already has a song for her, aptly titled Amphetamine:

She’s perfect in that fucked up way / that all the magazines want to glorify these days…

Let the magazines do the glorification of our “perfect” amphetamine girls. As for now, one blogger isn’t buying into it.