Category: Facts Tags: , Signs of Prescription Drug Abuse, teen prescription drug abuse
Adderall is a stimulant prescription medication used to treat patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. For these patients, the drug helps to normalize brain function and behavior. Unfortunately, the drug is frequently abused by healthy individuals looking for an edge.
Sometimes Adderall is used as a “study drug” by healthy students looking for an academic boost as it improves focus, concentration and alertness to make study sessions more productive, class time more beneficial and test-taking more successful. Other times Adderall is misused to help lose weight as it speeds up metabolism and suppresses appetite.
But it’s not only abused as a study drug or a diet drug – Adderall is also fast becoming a sports drug. Synthetic steroids aren’t the only performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) with athletes getting caught using Adderall to improve their performance.
Athletes abuse Adderall because it helps them to pay better attention during team meetings, perform better during team workouts and react more quickly on the day of the game. Leading athletes in MLB, NFL and the NCAA have all been placed under suspicion for abusing Adderall.
Adderall abuse hasn’t remained in the realms of professional sports, however – teens that see their heroes using PEDs are tempted to do the same.
The problem, of course, is that when you take a prescription drug for reasons other than its labeled use you run tremendous health risks. Adderall speeds up heart rate, suppresses appetite and dehydrates, and these are all highly dangerous risks.
Professional athletes sometimes fake symptoms of legitimate illnesses in order to get an Adderall prescription, and teens have been quick to follow suit. If they can’t get a doctor to prescribe Adderall for them they may try buying it from a fellow student with a legitimate prescription. Since the number of Adderall prescriptions has more than doubled in recent years, it isn’t hard to find someone in possession.
With high profile athletes abusing Adderall to gain advantage on the field, it becomes a tough sell to kids to simply work with the tools God gave them. Eat right, sleep right, train right is not a glamorous recipe – but it remains the safest and best.
