Adderall

Molly Young has a worthwhile essay on n + 1's website about her use of Adderral as a performance enhancing study drug in college. It's something I tried a few times, both as she describes and as a recreational drug, back in the day but I found its effects to be pretty mild. The big plus side is that if I tried to pull all nighters based on drinking coffee or Diet Coke, I would eventually get shaky and feel a bit ill, whereas on Adderral I could really keep plugging along. It's not, however, something I really ever had great occasion to use.

Some people, though, clearly experience great effects and it does raise some questions. Do we really want to create a situation where some students may feel that they have to abuse prescription drugs to stay competitive in school? Then again, if there's a pill out there that's safe to take and helps kids learn a bunch of stuff, doesn't it seem like we should be prescribing more of it? I'd want to know more about what the real medical affects of taking the stuff before I made any kind of judgment. I will say that I was a bit shocked to hear about some of the younger faculty using it to help get their work done, but even though at the moment Adderral seems to mainly be a vice of college students there's no particular reason it couldn't be useful (in good ways or bad) for a much wider range of people.

Comments

I used to be prescribed Aderall for my ADD in high school where it had terrible effects on me. It made me twitchy, irritable and suppressed my appetite so badly that I lost 10 lbs over the period of about a month (I was thin already) and I fainted once.

I now take Concerta, which is a derivative or Ritalin. It seems to me to be the very definition of a Performance Enhancing Drug. Without it I'd be a far less effective student. I'm thankful for it, and it has dramatically improved the quality of my life

Posted by NM | February 26, 2008 9:27 AM

It's not that hard to pull all nighters in college without any kind of stimulants. I did it all the time, without caffeine or anything else.

Posted by mad6798j | February 26, 2008 9:35 AM

I can't wait for the senate subcomittee hearings. An abashed undergraduate sits at a table while Arlen Specter angrily waves a stack of papers.

"A twenty page paper on the collected works of Italo Calvino complete with citations, footnotes, AND endnotes. And we have evidence you read ALL of John Galt's radio address too without passing out. What kind of example do you think you're setting for the kids?"

Posted by Chris | February 26, 2008 9:35 AM

Whatever works, man.

Posted by college student using adderall right now | February 26, 2008 9:37 AM

As a UVA Law guy, I feel compelled to post this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cStYu_-vu2g

Posted by J.B. | February 26, 2008 9:38 AM

Adderall is primarily used as a treatment for ADD and depression. It also causes many people to become "wired", but one of the biggest reasons people take it--especially girls--is because it is a significant appetite supressant. When I was on it (for ADD), I lost about twenty-five pounds. That may be a more severe amount than most people would see, but still...

Posted by Claudius | February 26, 2008 9:42 AM

being prescribed a "good grades" drug seems like a scary thing to me. i got through all-nighters on only caffeine and the anxiety that built up over the night would keep me going. maybe a focus on better time-planning would be more effective? especially for the long term?

Posted by erg | February 26, 2008 9:44 AM

Dude, could you hook me up? You got my email.

Posted by cw | February 26, 2008 9:47 AM

How do you think your Doctor got through medical school and residency?

Posted by GtheK | February 26, 2008 9:48 AM

One wonders if a generation of social elites brought up on intellectual performance enhancing drugs will be more sympathetic athletes using steroids, HGH, and so forth.

Posted by wugong | February 26, 2008 9:51 AM

I will say that I was a bit shocked to hear about some of the younger faculty using it to help get their work done

Can't see why. Younger faculty at a major university are either tenure-track, or on a temporary or adjunct contract and hoping to land a tenure-track spot somewhere else.

So they've got heavier teaching loads than the senior faculty, and need to publish research at the same time in order to build up their credentials for tenure or a tenure-track position.

Even if they're single (let alone married with children) they're the most overworked, stressed-out people in the university. If anyone at a university would need something like Adderall, they're the ones.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | February 26, 2008 9:53 AM

As in elite colleges and universities, there's also a huge premium in a lot of political jobs (especially in campaigns) on being able to go without sleep and/or even proper food--people routinely pull all-nighters, live in their offices, brag about how little sleep they get. People who don't have the kind of weird physical makeup that allows you to do that are pretty much shut out of such positions--but these physical characteristics aren't connected to other skills you might want political operatives to have, for example, good judgment. Would making drugs like adderall more available improve the quality of our politics by opening the door for more people who don't, naturally, have the physical makeup for campaign/high-level political life, but may have other valuable skills? Related: Given that many people in significant political positions came from competitive colleges and universities, how many of them are already relying heavily on this stuff?

Posted by flippantangel | February 26, 2008 10:01 AM

Anecdatally, even limited use of Adderall can have long-term effects on your ability to spell.

Posted by Doug | February 26, 2008 10:06 AM

Academicia IS competitive, so maybe the steroid analogy is somewhat apt. But for every aspiring faculty member who uses adderall to clear the cobwebs, there are 100 who go without sleep, who go without any sort of a social life, and who have even sacrificed the possibility of raising a family, in order to get where they are academically.

Point being, if you happen to use a stimulant on the long hard slog to tenure, it's probably far less damaging to your long-term health and well-being than all the other things that people are doing.

Posted by ArtB | February 26, 2008 10:09 AM

Am I the only one who sees this as a kind of cheating? It seems kind of unfair that people can take a drug that makes them focus for hours and use that to get ahead of everyone else.

If someone is getting ahead, that means that someone else is falling behind. Class rankings, grad school admissions, etc, are zero sum. If steroids in sports are cheating, how is this different?

Posted by Patrick | February 26, 2008 10:10 AM

Rather than prescribing performance-enhancing drugs to young people, wouldn't it make more sense to address the rat race culture that seems to be counterproductive to long-term health and happiness?

Because that is really what is going on here: these young people are competing against each other in ways that probably decrease both their personal and total social welfare. And no, whatever marginal additional information they learn and retain in the process is probably not nearly valuable enough to make up for those harmful effects.

So given this context, all giving them performance-enhancing drugs will do is allow that counterproductive competition to crank up to an even higher level. In that sense, I think whether the drugs themselves are medically safe is rather beside the point. This competition itself is harmful, and we shouldn't be encouraging even more of it.

Posted by DTM | February 26, 2008 10:15 AM

I'm 100% with NM - Concerta is way better than Adderall. I have also heard that there are some anti-narcoleptics that might help in the same way, but I don't know anyone with narcolepsy so I have never been able to try any.

And to answer wugong, I would do steroids too if they were easy to find and you didn't still have to exercise to get the effects. :-)

Posted by Drew Miller | February 26, 2008 10:22 AM

Am I the only one who sees this as a kind of cheating? It seems kind of unfair that people can take a drug that makes them focus for hours and use that to get ahead of everyone else.

It's also unfair that some people naturally have a greater capacity to focus, and lesser physical need for sleep than others. Maybe this would just even the playing field for everyone else?

Posted by flippantangel | February 26, 2008 10:27 AM

Not that it matters a ton, but that article has a lot of its facts wrong. For example, while the brand adderall was created in 96, the amphetamines in it have been used for decades. And taking more adderall (20 mg instead of 10) will not make the effects last longer.

Posted by hjk | February 26, 2008 10:30 AM

"It's also unfair that some people naturally have a greater capacity to focus, and lesser physical need for sleep than others. Maybe this would just even the playing field for everyone else?"

By that logic lets just even the playing field all the way and give everybody the same grade.

Posted by Patrick | February 26, 2008 10:31 AM

Here's an even better idea: not letting everything pile up, so you don't have to pull all-nighters!

Posted by Peter | February 26, 2008 10:33 AM

This is one of the areas where my intellectual arrogance keeps me ethical. I'm sure there are people in my program who are using Adderall to help them study, and you know what? The fact that they do just proves again that they aren't on my level. I'm pretty scornful of people who need crutches to compete intellectually.

Posted by Freddie | February 26, 2008 10:37 AM

Class rankings, grad school admissions, etc, are zero sum. If steroids in sports are cheating, how is this different?

People enjoy a sport, in part, because, unlike the rest of life, it usually has well-define rules and transparency and a certain obviousness as to achievement. That is, nothing like the rest of life.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 26, 2008 10:38 AM

Adderall is just a mixture of garden-variety amphetamine and Dexedrine. They have been in use since at least the mid-twentieth-century and are fairly well understood. But I would not describe it as "a pill out there that's safe to take and helps kids learn a bunch of stuff" by any means.

The results of abuse of amphetamines is also well-understood. Speed kills. Initial effects of amphetamine abuse are wakefulness and confidence, the ability to engage in more physical activity, and a decrease in appetite. Long-term amphetamine abuse causes irritability, paranoia, violent rages, and serious health problems such as damage to the brain and heart. Chronic amphetamine abusers must increase the dosage of amphetamine in order to feel the effects of the drug, even as its negative effects increase. It is also common for amphetamine abusers to feel as if worms or insects are crawling under their skin. Withdrawal from the drug can cause further anxiety, aggression, and paranoia, and also typically results in fatigue, depression, and an intense craving for amphetamine.

Controlled, moderate use of the drug over limited durations is not harmful, but control and moderation are not traits we expect in children and teens.

Posted by Daddy Love | February 26, 2008 10:43 AM

Adderall and dexedrine are amphetamines, and Ritalin (Concerta and other forms) works the same way. A non-ADD person tends to develop a tolerance over time to these drugs. Like caffeine, there often is a real dopamine spike when one takes these drugs.

The drug which is used more and more in place of amphetamine-like drugs is ProVigil. But it's generally not used for ADD, and as a result college kids have a harder time getting a hold of it.

Posted by MattD | February 26, 2008 10:45 AM

This is one of the areas where my intellectual arrogance keeps me ethical. I'm sure there are people in my program who are using Adderall to help them study, and you know what? The fact that they do just proves again that they aren't on my level. I'm pretty scornful of people who need crutches to compete intellectually.

For what value of "intellectually"? I'm not about to hold what follows up to scientific scrutiny, but what passes for "intellectual capacity" in everyday parlance - even the everyday life of an academic program - seems to me more like a basket of qualities than a particular thing, and the more obviously salient qualities might not be the most relevant. However intelligent or un- I am, the primary way I signal it to people is by demonstrating myself to be (a) widely knowledgable while simultaneously (b) having a strong memory, neither of which I'm comfortable pinning down as "intelligence". These are qualities that remain relevant to the practice of your field if you're, say, a doctor (I imagine), but they're really a poor proxy IMO for the skills necessary to do, say, strong work in philosophy. Maybe the kids with the greatest capacity for analytical insight happens to absorb information more slowly (or, without the aid of drugs, he just starts falling apart with less than seven hours of sleep). So to get through the rigors of a graduate program (or life as a junior faculty member) maybe you need to find a way to compensate lacking in certain ancillary capacities so that you have the opportunity to express your more relevant abilities? Lighten up.

(That said, I personally am the sort of person who's overly cautious about the potential effects and side effects of drugs.)

Posted by Quarterican | February 26, 2008 10:49 AM

As I should have made clear, that's not something that I'm suggesting is rational or subject to real scrutiny. It's just the way it is for me. Luckily, because it only affects my behavior, and does so in a way that's good for my health and well-being, it doesn't have to be particularly defensible.

Lightening up, by the way, works both ways.

Posted by Freddie | February 26, 2008 10:56 AM

Q: As an undergraduate in philosophy, my memory was terrific--trained over years to memorize vast amounts of information. But since doing graduate work and going on to teach philosophy, I'm much less able to memorize. (On the other hand, I'm a much clearer thinker than I was as an undergraduate.) I'm pretty sure my memorizing box (separate from my belief box or desire box) shrunk over the last 15 years.

I can't do serious philosophy when I'm tired--even with caffeine, so I use caffeine to do other things when I'm tired.

Posted by MattD | February 26, 2008 11:00 AM

Military Pilots used to be given Adderal (dexadrene when I used to "know" about it). They were referred to as "Go Pills".

Just wanted to add this to the discussion. No judgements.

Posted by David | February 26, 2008 11:29 AM

Guess what. Rush Limbaugh thinks he's superior to rock stars, because Rush abuses the prescription product OxyContin instead of dirty fucking hippie heroin.

So I'm sorry, Ivy Leaguers. I know you think you're better than ordinary tweakers smoking crystal meth, but take another hit first, and then do the math.

Posted by Aatos | February 26, 2008 11:32 AM

1) The Navy Seals have Hell Week -- in which people conduct military exercises /heavy labor for about 5 days with only 4 hours of sleep TOTAL.

2) One account of the training indicated that doctors advise the Seals that drugs --including caffeine --only give a short term boost and that the resulting crash hurts performance in succeeding days. Evidently, there's no free lunch.

3) I --like others here --pulled all nighters in college at crunch times like exams. But the practice is stupid as a regular thing. And one usually has to make up the sleep later.

4) People are also poor at judging their performance when they're mentally impaired. I recall a number of pot heads who thought they were divinely inspired when stoned. On those occasions when I was --because of poor judgement -- sober, it seemed to me that the heads were simply stoned.

Small, the military puts amphetamines in GRE's (according to my uncle who previously served) and the air force uses stimulants for pilots.

The idea that it is "unfair" seems a little silly. ADD is a medically recognized neurological disorder. You know what is also a neurological disorder? Schizophrenia! And I don't know about you, but I'm whole heartedly in favor of giving them their drugs.

It's not as though a majority of the people taking these drugs are lazy or unmotivated (quite the opposite). These are performance enhancing drugs, but that just means they make you better than you would be without them. So your anti-cholesterol medication, anti-depressants, even migraine medication are all equally "performance enhancing" especially if you'd die without them

Posted by NM | February 26, 2008 11:53 AM

Provigil was first used in a military setting (keeping pilots awake), no?

I'm sort of torn on this. You have various pop-histories on the 'stimulated enlightenment' -- the 18th century is the century of tea, coffee and chocolate establishing themselves in Europe and North America.

Amphetamines are fairly crude drugs, but they're no less crude than antihistamines or melatonin for sleeping. In fact, I'd say they're only slightly more refined than chewing khat or coca leaf.

(And like MattD, my memory isn't as good as it was when I was an undergraduate, but my analytical skills feel much more highly refined.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 26, 2008 12:23 PM

I can't wait for the senate subcomittee hearings. An abashed undergraduate sits at a table while Arlen Specter angrily waves a stack of papers.

"B-but Senator Specter, we know you don't like it when people hand in their opening statements late..."

Amphetamines are really just low-tech drugs. Which is why they're cheap. Provigil doesn't tighten the mind, but it does banish the urge to sleep, in a way that feels much more sophisticated, a lot less sledgehammer.

If anyone at a university would need something like Adderall, they're the ones.

Adderall + Provigil + Effexor + cigarettes.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 26, 2008 12:28 PM

1) The Navy Seals have Hell Week -- in which people conduct military exercises /heavy labor for about 5 days with only 4 hours of sleep TOTAL.

2) One account of the training indicated that doctors advise the Seals that drugs --including caffeine --only give a short term boost and that the resulting crash hurts performance in succeeding days. Evidently, there's no free lunch.

Here's the thing right: a navy seal who goes through a prolonged test shouldn't be using amphetamines. Pilots, on the other hand, might have weird schedules and long flights where they have plenty of total down time but need to be really up for their up time. So amphetamines make a lot of sense in one case, but not the other.

If it's really not a free lunch, which I'm not sure I believe, there is no reason for students to need to take amphetamines. If you find it helps, that probably just means you have poor time management skills.

My thinking, though, is that if you have a short term need like a pilot, the benefit is huge. If you have a long term need, like a student, it may help get you up quickly and stay alert when you're getting tired (so some benefit), but unless you get enough sleep overall your performance will still suffer. If you're going through residency, which may not be that taxing for some mentally, you may just need the ability to stay awake.

These drugs could be good, and could be bad. And it could depend on the person. The big problem, in my mind, is that we let our focus on legality prevent us from conducting the studies that we need to make smarter decisions.

Posted by mpowell | February 26, 2008 2:33 PM

This isn't the first time this sort of thing came up. In the '50s and '60s, when amphetamines were widely prescribed as appetite suppressants and "mother's little helpers", it was common for college students to acquire and use them as study drugs.

The downside is kind of embodied in a friend I shared a house with senior year who kind of retreated to his garret and snorted adderall and wrote all year. By the end of which he'd created, as a senior thesis, a thousand page, extensively footnoted novel full of threats to the penis, and then gone on and written several more layers of text and reference in ink on the manuscript pages. He also became convinced he was going to take over the world through overpowering sonnets (srsly) and constructed an elaborate cosmology of who did and didn't "get it", complete with wacky numerological overlay.

Posted by Senescent | February 26, 2008 4:45 PM

"How do you think your Doctor got through medical school and residency?"

Good old fashioned cocaine.

Posted by mad6798j | February 26, 2008 4:52 PM

I've used Adderall once and Ritalin once. With Adderall, I didn't feel any different but I studied for 10 hours straight while normally I couldn't study for more than 2 hours without a long break. Ritalin made me jittery but my comprehension was unreal. I studied for a couple hours for a test in a class I hadn't even attended and got an A on said test.

Posted by Slicky | February 26, 2008 5:00 PM

The root of this issue is the behavioral demand that calls for the adderall effects.

Spending hours on end reading/writing is in no way shape or form natural behavior. Like, running into a burning buildings isn't natural, which is why they have artificial aid for firefighters- their special gear.

Two ways to go: reduce the need for the unnatural behavior, or use tools. Both are fine things to do.

Posted by Jeff Morgan | February 26, 2008 6:02 PM

Adderall is widely used at my university. When you have 3 midterms in a single day or two term papers due within an hour of one another you end up looking for help. Rather than risk violating any honor code, drugs are the answer. Libraries are open 24 hours for this very purpose.
You do what you have to do. Adderall makes you feel like a prodigy, a Shakespeare writing your term paper, an Einstein reading a textbook.
I have decided that the drug is a negative however. I used this quite a bit in my first year and I feel it made me procrastinate longer. I could always rely on the drug to get me through any assignment/studying rather quickly. Now, I don't use any substances beyond Dr. Pepper and junk food and receive better grades, am healthier and more emotionally stable.

Posted by Matt | February 26, 2008 6:45 PM

Matt: "I tried to pull all nighters based on drinking coffee or Diet Coke, I would eventually get shaky and feel a bit ill..."

This is where your lack of tech knowledge screws you up.

What you should have done is taken "Blast" (or the pill form, "Fast Blast") which is available on line from a number of vitamin sites. It was invented by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, the life extension scientists, and old acquaintances of mine.

This stuff is essentially two cups of coffee worth of caffeine surrounded by various nutrients. The nutrients stimulate the production of noradrenaline, which is the adrenaline the brain uses. Thus, the caffeine keeps burning your noradrenaline, the nutrients keep producing it, and you end up going for 24 hours straight with little ill effects (although in some cases you still get the jitters.)

Good for waking up in the morning, too. I used to pop a couple pills of this stuff on an empty stomach after getting up in the morning, and within a half hour or so, my eyes are seriously open, i.e., I was alert and good to go.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 27, 2008 12:28 AM

I'm pulling an all nighter fueled on diet coke (Well, Diet Pepsi Vanilla) right now!

Break's over. Back to the grindstone.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | February 27, 2008 3:40 AM

"If steroids in sports are cheating, how is this different?"

Just a point: Steroids are cheating because sports are a *game* with rules. The rules are what make steroids cheating-- and they are in place because to permit them would create an overwhelming incentive to use them, despite their debilitating long-term health effects. It would be, in essence, a market failure.

If steroids were SAFE there'd be no problem with them-- as all manner of other nutritional treatments from vitamins to protein shakes are also used, albeit less effectively, to improve performance. I take no position on whether Adderall is "safe" for widespread use-- but academia is not a game, all appearances to the contrary. There is no corresponding rule.

Now, um, actually back to my allnighter.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | February 27, 2008 3:48 AM

so where would i get this stuff from?

Posted by muh | March 8, 2008 8:24 AM