Adderall XR is arranged in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Tuesday, August 15th. (JB REED)
Nearly one in five students at an Ivy League university have misused ADHD drugs to improve their school performance, according to a new poll being presented Saturday at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The lead researcher, Andrew Adesman, declined to name the college he surveyed, saying that he’s confident that the rate is virtually the same at every other school.
“I don’t think this is a phenomenon that’s necessarily any greater a problem in the Ivies than anywhere else,” said Adesman, a developmental pediatrician and chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park.
Some school honor codes, such as at Duke University in North Carolina, expressly forbid performance-enhancing drugs, Adesman said.
But many others have not yet acknowledged the growing use of these stimulant medications on their campuses, said Sean Esteban McCabe, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center.
Filed under: CAMPUS LIFE Tagged: academics, Adderall, ADHD, drug use, ivy league, studying