The Prescription Drug Epidemic

This past Sunday, I was sitting in Panera Bread in Emory Village and saw one student offering up her prescription bottle to another. I was glad to see the second student deny the offer with a hand gesture and a shake of her head. The incident reminded me of a news special on the increased use of drugs on college campuses I had seen a few months ago on television.

Of course these students were looking to get high and party a little, right? Wrong. These kids were taking "study drugs." Apparently, getting ahead in school has become so competitive that students are willing to go the route of prescription medications to get good grades and get an upper hand. Ritalin and Adderall, the most commonly used study drugs according to the program, both fall in the same family as the street drug, crystal meth or methamphetamine.

It is reported that these prescription drugs, which are normally prescribed to people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, help a student concentrate better and stay up all night studying if necessary. That's pretty handy when you're cramming for a test or finishing up a last minute paper. The problem is the long list of possible side effects that come along with this tidy package, including irregular heartbeat, very high blood pressure, anxiety, nervousness, headache, dizziness, insomnia, diarrhea, constipation, impotence, change in sex drive and liver damage.

What I find interesting is that most of the aforementioned side effects are the same symptoms that someone who is overstressed might experience. Understandably there's a lot of competition to achieve a high grade point average which ultimately could lead to a better job and more money. This, of course, means stress. It should be noted that the stress of doing better is the one thing that contributes the most the inability to do so.

When we're stressed, we essentially become disconnected from the higher brain. This has a significant effect on our ability to learn since that's the part of the brain that, among other things, assimilates new information. (I've discussed this concept in several previous articles.) It's no wonder these students are seeking learning enhancers, but the cycle of quick fix that these students are perpetuating to deal with what is going on inside of them is merely a reflection of the outside behavior of the rest of society..

Students may hear the “don't do drugs” message as preached by society, but what do they see? They see a society that is not driven by inner values, but one that is completely absorbed by outer or surface values. They've been indoctrinated in the belief that if it's not the “bad” or illegal drugs, then it's okay. Their parents' cabinets are filled with prescriptions, and they are bombarded with commercials telling them about medications to help them sleep, stay awake, get out of pain, ease their stomach, ease their anxiety and, yes, learn better. But what price will they pay?

On one hand, it seems a little ridiculous to me that our culture doesn't “get it,” but on the other hand, I can understand why. To begin with, pharmaceutical companies have woven a long-term and brilliant brain washing campaign into the fabric of a society that is already out of touch with their inherent ability to tap into their own potential. Couple this with the fact that the mechanistic or quick-fix philosophy seems to have a stronghold on modern society, and you have to wonder why people are even surprised when their kids use drugs.

What if these students were given alternative tools to release tension and better adapt to competitive educational stress? Maybe they would choose differently. I can only hope that our culture's small but growing number of vitalistic thinkers can begin to influence the beliefs and therefore the behaviors of students and society as a whole. Maybe that student who opted not to accept the study drugs that day at Panera is a sign of things come.