Adderall Helps Students Focus and Cheat

As a Schedule II drug, getting caught with Adderall is as serious as cocaine or morphine and as the same legal consequences: a felony and jail time. Students caught with Adderall, or any prescription drug that is not theirs, results in serious consequences.

“The type of use would fall under our Drug and Alcohol Policy,” Assistant Principal Will Tyler said. “Any prescription drugs not prescribed to a student are assumed to be obtained through other illegal sources. It’s against school rules and the Adderall would be treated as an illegal drug.”

The specific consequences would depend on the situation, but expulsion is possible. If caught, both the person distributing and receiving would be in trouble.

Many recreational users are not aware of the legal penalties, but those who are do not seem to care.

“I’m not worried about getting caught. I’m just trying to focus on school anyways,” a senior girl with long brown hair who wishes to remain anonymous said, “My dad knows anyways.”

This girl told her dad in hopes that she would be able to get her own prescription, but it didn’t work. “I don’t use it very often, maybe only once every couple months, but I would use it a lot more if I had my own or I could sell the rest,” the same girl said.

Although many students use Adderall as prescribed, some choose to sell theirs to friends.

“I have friends who know I have a prescription so when they started asking me about buying some, I never thought of it as a big deal just as a way to make some extra money,” a tall senior boy who also wants to remain anonymous said.

Students who do not use Adderall find it disturbing that so many people use it to cheat.

“It makes it harder for people who do their work without it to keep up. If someone uses Adderall and Won’t get tired working on a paper, they can stay up all night working on when someone who doesn’t use it can’t focus on it as long and also has to go to sleep. It’s just not fair junior Miranda Hoegberg said.

Adderall is especially becoming a problem in AP/IB classes. Students in these classes feel an immense amount of pressure to excel in everything.

“Adderall really does help me focus if I take the right amount. Like if I have a really long paper to write or a really long test like the AR then I’ll take it. It helps me calm down about it and I get my work done so you just have to be smart about it. I understand its illegal, but I don’t think it’s considered cheating,” a junior IB student said.

Adderall is also being used to take tests such as the SAT or ACT. Students who use Adderall make it easier for them to get better scores because they are so focused. But this makes it harder for students not using Adderall to get the same or higher score, thus making it harder for them to get into the same colleges.

“The first time I took the SAT I didn’t do very well since it was so long. But the second time I took some Adderall and it helped out a lot,” the same senior girl said.

Using Adderall has serious legal and health consequences and that the tried and true method of studying ahead of time may be the safest way to get good grades.