I am finally out for summer break. The pressure of exams, and the stress of the papers has finally ended and I am able to enjoy reading books like Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order. This past semester proved to be the worst one yet, and pushed me to be a better student, but also made me the most stressed I have ever been. This is something every student, at every college and university across the country deals with. But a trend I saw, and it is disturbing, is the use of prescription drugs to stay up longer and focus.

Attention drugs like Adderall and Vyvanse are often prescribed to students who are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorders.   There are legitimate uses for the drugs, but there is a large, underground market that exists for these drugs. Students without prescriptions take them and are able to go for eight or more hours of solid studying and do not feel tired. This gives them an edge in the classroom.  When students are on these drugs, they are able to forget about everything else and work on the task at hand.

For students who do not take part in these drugs, it is difficult and frustrating.  When their peers  abuse attention enhancing drugs, it provides an unfair advantage for those students. Both drugs are habit forming, and are easily prescribed by doctors. For students who want to use Adderall or Vyvanse, they can buy from their friends or get a prescription from a doctor who willingly prescribes it.

So many students walk around our colleges and universities hyped up on Adderall and Vyvanse going from class to class, event to event, day to day abusing drugs that change the chemical composition of the brain and allow them to be “better” students. This is enormous problem, one I think mostly ignored in debates over drug use.