Adderall Abuse Leads to Hurtful Side Effects

By Hope Mayo & Krista Oliver
Journalism Students

With finals right around the corner, students go to extreme measures to prepare. Many students use Adderall to help them focus and study as much as possible during exam week.

The problem across college campuses is that not all of these students are prescribed to the drug.

“For me personally I have a prescription for Adderall and my friends and roommates will text me or ask if they can have one,” senior Dylan Wexler said. “I definitely wouldn’t just give it out to random people, but I don’t think of it as anything too dangerous or serious when my close friends ask for it as a way to study.”

Students like senior Dylan Waxler disagree that using unprescribed Adderall is “no big deal.”

“I am not prescribed to Adderall, so I have never used it before to help me study,” Waxler said. “I would be worried about the negative side effects of using it when not prescribed by a doctor.”

Campus Pharmacist Chad Westmoreland stresses that the only students who should be using Adderall during finals week are those who are prescribed to the drug by a doctor.

“When students that are not prescribed to the drug use Adderall, they can experience negative side effects such a lack of sleep, increased heart rate and anxiety,” Westmoreland said. “I can’t imagine why you would want to be dealing with those kinds of things during final exams.”

It is important to note that in the state of Mississippi if someone is caught with possession of 8-10 Adderall pills without a prescription, he or she can be sentenced up to eight years in prison.