Nowadays, college students are trying to get more done than what they can do in their life at short period of time. Drugs like Ritalin and Adderal are commonly prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, students abuse this drugs buying them illegally or giving false symptoms’ to doctors to have the medication prescribed so they can use it for themselves or sell it to others. College students use this drug as a tool to helps them to concentrate on exam week. It is obvious that when college students have trouble in school, they need to study harder. However, when the school environment is incredibly competitive, they seek a way of competing with others. By abusing ADHD drugs they try to catch up and succeeded in their school work. College students whom involve themselves in such drug abusive activity believe that if they don’t take this ADHD drugs, they will be disadvantaged to everyone else. So as a result students use these stimulant prescribed drugs which is illegal to get their academic work done quicker or do more than what they could do in a short period of time. It sounds like no one cares about what could happen or what the side effect could be. All they want is to finish their school with those 4 years taking the medicine and then graduate. According to federal drug officials there is major health concern which Ritalin can increase the chance to have heart rate and blood pressure among others problems in a long run. College students should know better, they may think that they can get away for the moment, but how about if they get sick once they finished school? The chance to be healthy enough to go to work or to hold a job for long time could be at risk. Would it be worth risking health just to improve concentration and study longer that is required for only 2-4 years of college years?
More information @
http://www.azcentral.com/families/education/articles/0801back-ritalin-ON.html?&wired
http://www.ndsn.org/feb98/trends.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/70784.php
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/children/01/08/college.ritalin
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I personally find these kind of findings alarming but not necessarily surprising. There is a lot of pressure in school to cram as many classes "as possible" (which has debatable meanings) in an effort to finish school earlier than maybe they should. Doing a course load of between 16 and 20 credits and trying to maintain a social life (which is a VERY important aspect of growth and development) is almost impossible to ask but, schools expect students to do such. At late teen and early twenties ages, most students are woefully unprepared for this kind of pressure and therefore turn to the above mentioned drugs to attempt to cope with these pressures.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, as stated above, most students don't realize nor perhaps care about the extreme ramifications of using these drugs in a way that they were never intended for. I personally believe that a lot of the problems lie in the fact that school is pushed to hard and is overrated. I personally believe that while school is a very important part of ones career success but it is only a small part. I think there should be a fundamental reshaping of school degree programs. There should be a much greater emphasis on work experience throughout the course program. Perhaps by reducing course load for students, the use of these "illegal" legal drugs.
I totally agree that there needs to be a change to the school curriculm. There is too much stress on kids, and alot of them dont know how to handle it. Stress can lead to terrible things such as suicide and drug abuse.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree that a social life is very important for developing children. I know that the week is much easier when I have the support of my friends.
I found it interesting that you sympathize with the teens who are useing stimulants, and instead of just calling them " bad kids", you are looking at other ways to stop this behavior.
This is a clear situation where society is demanding a solution via a pill. While there may be some benefits for people with ADHD, there are also harmful benefits for them as well. All these drugs are, are legalized amphetamines. Even if they are helping the patient with ADHD, they are making the patient grow dependant on them. I have a brother in-law that has been diagnosed with ADHD and is extremely dependant on Adderall . They cost him lots of money and don’t really help him go anywhere in life. So not only do they cause issues with the people they are prescribed to, they cause issues with the people who take then illegally. They should just take the drug off the market and stop trying to push pills down our throats to solve our problems.
ReplyDeleteI think it is ridiculous to do any type of prescription drug, or any drug for that matter. it is very dangerous especailly when the dosage instructions differ from age and weight with most medicines. You never know what can happen, you could over dose and die and your loved ones would have to deal with the consequences for the rest of their lives al because someone wanted to take the edge off alittle bit.
ReplyDeleteIndeed there is an increase of school voilence and abuse of students. The use of drugs by college students must contribute to these acts. There is the need to check students' life styles on the campuses.
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