Adderall

This weekend, the New York Times carried an article entitled Risky Rise of the Good Grade Pill. The piece concerns the abuse of certain prescription medications by high school and college students trying to stay awake to study, or trying to stay focused during exams. The most popular drug seems to be Adderall, which is the brand name of an ADHD medication composed of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine. (The NIH describes the drug and its uses here.) In some instances, students are selling Adderall to one another, while in others, students with a prescription simply give some of their pills to friends. The article suggests that the sharing of Adderall and similar drugs is quite widespread in a certain demographic. The practice seems to be viewed as somewhere between totally harmless (like sharing ibuprofen) and sneaky-but-not-too-serious (like smoking an occasional cigarette). I work with a high school debate team, and although as far as I know, the kids I coach don’t use unprescribed medication, they talk about the subject with a casualness that suggests that there’s not a major social taboo against it. One gets a similar feeling from this piece, several years back, about the abuse of Adderall at UNC. Social taboo or not, of course, there are legal risks associated with the behavior in question. I thought I’d take a moment to note some of the potential criminal liability under North Carolina law. It is apparently common for students to obtain prescriptions for the drugs by faking symptoms of ADHD. [...]