Does Columbia have an Adderall problem?

Midterms are fast approaching, and you haven’t done shit to prepare for them.

You muster up the courage, face your biggest fears, and start to get your shit together. You print out all the articles and essays that you’ve forgotten to read, print our your legible lecture notes and start studying.

If this person sounds at all like you, kudos — you’re annoying.

For the rest of us, preparing for midterm season at Columbia is one of the most daunting tasks. It requires complete concentration, discipline and the supernatural ability to defy sleep. And even if you are Zeus himself, there is no guarantee that you will be even remotely prepared for that midterm come Monday morning.

Because let’s face it, Columbia loves watching you struggle. And what’s midterm season if it doesn’t do just that.

But what if I told you you could struggle a little bit less with the help of this pill? It has the potential to make you focus for hours on end and make you so hyped-up that you don’t even need to sleep.

Would you take this pill?

Would you?

For people who are not diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, the effects of Adderall seem too good to be true.

First introduced to the public in 1996, Adderall was prescribed to patients who suffered from ADD or ADHD— the drug’s active ingredients artificially stimulate the mind to be more attentive, less impulsive and less hyperactive. Classified by the DEA as a Schedule II drug (along with cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, fentanyl, Ritalin) for its “high potential for abuse…with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence,” Adderall was strictly regulated and distributed.

Today, however, Adderall has become widely accessible to students across the country.

Whether students are buying “Addy” off a friend or their local dealer, it is clear that Adderall has made its way to Columbia University.

So I began asking around, “Have you ever taken Adderall without a prescription?”

14 out of 21 students I spoke to said they have taken Adderall. 12 out of those 14 students said they have taken Adderall without a prescription. (2 of of those 14 students are prescribed Adderall.) 7 out of 21 students said they have not taken Adderall at all.

This got me thinking: do students who take Adderall without a prescription take it frequently or only on certain occasions?

One out of the 12 students who said they have taken Adderall without a prescription has taken Adderall once, 11 out of the 12 students have taken it more than two times and four out of the 12 students have taken it more than ten times. That’s roughly 20 percent of the sample size.

They’re everywhere

And these students are definitely poppin’ Addy on certain occasions: “LitHum finals”, “for essays due that day”, “to research and write an essay”, “Bio exam”, “Econ final” and “during midterms and finals” — that was a big one.

When asked whether students are turning to Adderall because of its highly addictive formula, one CC sophomore was quick to respond, “If I was just interested in stimulants, I would take other (more fun) drugs.”

The 21 students who were surveyed unanimously agreed: the abuse of Adderall at Columbia is a result of the pressures students are facing.

Students at Columbia who take Adderall without a prescription are, for the most part, using it to study, “to get shit done”, and not to get high. But Adderall’s high potential for abuse leads to the question: are students who continue to misuse Adderall doing so because they are addicted or because of something else?

As a CC sophomore puts it, “It’s the pressure — not the Adderall — that we’re addicted to.”

Sure the effects of Adderall help us get shit done, but the “high” that comes with finishing something, anything in the face of extreme pressure—and feeling adequate while doing so—is what we are truely addicted to.

In his essay “The Organization Kid”, David Brooks insists that a new type of student has emerged.  And an environment that encourages unrealistic standards of success and discourages individuality and creativity is shaping this student.  This environment is teaching students to succeed, to get ahead of the competition, by using whatever means necessary.  And cheating the system and unfairly obtaining the prescribed psychostimulant—Adderall—is one way students from this generation have learned to stay on top.

It just so happens that these types of students (who are addicted to pressure, self-assurance, and getting ahead of the competition by using whatever means necessary) flock to Columbia.

The misuse of Adderall at Columbia conceals a more insidious and entrenched issue: the unrealistic standards of success by which colleges across the country hold their students to and the ways in which students are taught to deal with such issues.

To prevent the abuse of Adderall is to consider the message we’re sending our young adults when we demand excellence at any cost.