It’s final exam season for colleges, and students are turning to stimulant drugs to deal with heavy workloads. According to a study presented at an international pediatric meeting, one in five students at an unnamed Ivy League school admitted to using “study drugs” like Adderall and Ritalin, which are typically used to treat ADHD. We take a look at the way these drugs are misused, the serious risks involved in taking them and why college students are doing it anyway.
College Students Abuse Study Drugs for Exams
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Guests:
Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York and senior investigator on the study
Aiden, fourth-year student in the UC System who says he sometimes uses study drugs
Niloofar Bavarian, assistant professor in the Health Science Department at California State University, Long Beach who did a study on the misuse of prescription stimulants as a post-doc fellow at UC Berkeley
Michael McCutcheon, counseling psychology Ph.D. candidate at NYU currently working at USF
Sponsored