Why Adderall Usage to Enhance Academic Results Should be Prohibited

By Ella Kang

As academic expectations drastically increased over the past decades, academic pressure on students have also augmented. As a result, students have been seeking new methods to enhance their academic performances: taking orally consumed ADHD pills, namely, Adderall. Being one of the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders, Attention Deficit or Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) causes several symptoms: difficulty in paying attention to one task, struggle to keep oneself organized, excessive activity levels, and restless conflicts with other individuals due to lack of patience. This affects diagnosed individuals by straining them from participating in simple things, and receiving prejudiced opinions from non-ADHD individuals due to their startling actions such as running/climbing in inappropriate settings, talking too much, and not being able to remain composed for extended duration of time. For students with ADHD, these symptoms disrupt their academic performances and Adderall is prescribed to depress these complications. However, non-ADHD students have been abusing Adderall to enhance their concentration, hoping for it to enable longer study sessions and improve learning abilities. While these improvements may be true, it is certainly unethical for non-ADHD diagnosed students to utilize unprescribed Adderall simply for educational purposes because Adderall is a controlled drug, can have long term health issues, and serves unfair academic competition between hard-working students. 

Taking Adderall without being diagnosed with ADHD to enhance academic performances is unethical, mainly because students are abusing a prescription-needed drug without proper medical advice. While common drugs are easily accessible in local pharmacies, access to Adderall requires an official prescription from a doctor, because it is considered as a controlled substance. A controlled substance is described as a chemical–particularly drugs–that “can cause psychological or physical dependence,” which also has a “potential for misuse,” or abuse (Adderall: Side Effects, Dosage, with Alcohol). Some drugs that are in the same category include opioids, vicodin, depressants, etc., and are considered to be extremely dangerous when taken without proper medical advice. This signifies that Adderall  it can also cause psychological and physical dependence, addiction, and other complications such as “aching muscles, muscle spasms, anxiety or agitation, increased heart rate, difficulty concerning, detachment from reality” and possibly more (Drug Dependence: Symptoms and How to Get Help). Because drugs such as Adderall contain numerous side effects, it is absolutely unacceptable when students utilize it for educational purposes. To illustrate, if students gained unprescribed drugs, this most likely means that it was gained through an unsafe route: from a fellow ADHD-diagnosed peer possessing the drug, or from a doctor simply chasing financial profit despite its crime. In addition, the non-medical second vendors who directly provide Adderall to students are showcasing fatal ramification and violation of social norms. This misbehaving is consistent with the students who acquire Adderall without a rational purpose as they indirectly encourage inappropriate actions to their peers. This certainly is a crucial issue, since the usage of unprescribed controlled drugs may promote unhealthy practices and social environments. In this case, it will fasten the addiction to the drug, increase the body’s resistance against the drug, or both. Even worse, if the unethical actions of acquiring drugs are not regulated and discouraged at a young age, this practice may extend to harder drugs, possibly adding to the United State’s struggle with illegal drugs. 

Not only is the abuse of Adderall illegal, ingesting Adderall without an ADHD diagnosis can cause serious side effects and long term health complications. These exposures generally include “lack of appetite, dry mouth, trouble sleeping, headache, stomach pain, constipation, nausea, weight loss, anxiety,” and dizziness (Adderall: Side Effects, Dosage, with Alcohol and More). While these complications seem to be mild and not critical, it still can last up to a couple of weeks, possibly posing a negative impact on the user’s quality of life and performances in other aspects of life. In addition, there are several long-term side effects which are revealed as “several insomnia, fatigue, depression, skin disorders, moodiness or irritability…[and] weightloss” (Adderall: Side Effects, Dosage, with Alcohol and More). Again, these complications are not directly threatening health. However, struggling through both short-term and long-term side effects as teenagers or early-20s can become an inevitable amount of burden, causing lowered quality of life, increased risk of other substance abuse, difficulty engaging in social gatherings, etc. Even worse, the stated symptoms not only remain static, yet, it may lead to highly fatal consequences such as heart disease, sudden heart attack, and muscle breakdown. Most of the non-ADHD diagnosed patients who consume Adderall do not have proper knowledge of safe consumption amounts, and they are also unaware of side effects, easily being exposed to the danger of overdose. Normally, doctors and other medical professionals are able to provide these information during prescription and also review crucial factors before prescription to minimize these risks. For example, doctors check if “the type of severity of the condition you [the patient] are using Adderall to treat, you [the patient’s] age,  the form of Adderall you [the patient] take,” and “other medical conditions you [the patient] may have” to ensure Adderall usage won’t damage the user’s health and daily lives.  (Adderall: Side Effects, Dosage, with Alcohol and More). However, as mentioned above, due to the lack of information given to non-ADHD Adderall users, they are prone to suffer through both short-term and long-term complications, and at its worst, possibly health-detrimental impacts as well. 

Despite the contention, asserting the immorality of the non-ADHD diagnosed students’ usage of Adderall, some argue that it is not “unethical,” since it can elevate the educational performance and benefit the students if it is used responsibly. There is no doubt that Adderall can intensify academic abilities of students, especially in areas that require severe concentration. In fact, “according to The College Prescription Drug Study of 19,539 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from 26 institutions across the United States,” around 79% of the study population used Adderall to study (Adderall on Campus). Shockingly, these studies accompanied by college students on the effectiveness of Adderall in educational skills revealed that, in reality, no matter what the consequences are, Adderall helped them intensify focus and provided an advantage in their learning ability. Ergo, the employment of Adderall should be acknowledged as a “resourceful self-improvement,” rather than brutally criticized and prohibited, for it is one of the tactics students created to triumph their academic ability. Further in, as students in high school and college are mature enough to make their own judicious opt, Adderall usage is completely their own right. Thus, the application of stimulants to these students needs to be accepted, for they are using it as a resource for a responsible and rational reason: to assist their educational performance. 

Regardless of the potential benefits and the fact that Adderall does not pose threats to other individuals like different hard drugs, it’s still unethical due to its relationship with academic dishonesty. For example, in the Olympics, any type of dosing is prohibited. This is not because it directly improves the athlete’s ability to do a sport. Instead, it provides them with additional physical ability that can enhance the athlete’s blood flow, oxygen intake, physical durability, etc. This should be applied to academics as well. Taking Adderall does not provide higher grades or scores, however, it allows the student to study with enhanced concentration and less tiredness which can result in better outcomes. This is an explicit academic dishonesty and violence towards a fair academic field. The student-run newspaper led by the University of Purdue, The Exponent, claimed that “using Adderall for reasons other than its intended, prescribed purpose during a test should be considered cheating,” as Adderall is “a performance-enhancing drug,” which brutally assaults the fact that the students are being “tested of their knowledge on a subject at a given time without the use of other resources” (Adderall Abuse During Exams Should be Cheating). Therefore, due to the unfairness in academic performance Adderall brings, it should be monitored and carefully regulated, especially among those who are not diagnosed with ADHD. 

In consequence, the utilization of Adderall by non-ADHD diagnosed students should be strictly prohibited, even if it is used merely to assist their academic and learning abilities. It not only is an example of drug abuse without an adequate authorization of a medical practitioner, but it also harms the human body with catastrophic side effects. School is a place for learning and gaining knowledge, not a competitive ground where students have to overly stress about every test score and every grade. It is extremely crucial that society does not blame the students for finding methods to improve their academic performances, but look back on how society made academics into a competition, pressuring students to take extreme measures.   

By Ella Kang