Study Drugs and the Danger of Fabricated Truths

Since AP season recently ended, and finals and regents are approaching, students at Stuyvesant are more stressed and studying more than ever. Students are receiving less sleep than normal, and that’s considering a Stuyvesant student’s average  sleep duration is already low. Many students at Stuyvesant consider grades more important than sleep and mental health, subsequently pushing themselves to the limit to achieve the perfect score. Thus, caffeine is a necessity for many students. Caffeine is classified as a stimulant drug—although that may surprise many due to its widespread acceptance and consumption in society. However,  if coffee isn’t enough, the idea of turning to prescribed stimulant “study drugs”—such as Adderall or Ritalin—doesn’t seem so drastic to many students.

Stuyvesant's pressure-cooker environment might as well come with a guarantee for stress and a lack of sleep. This makes it easy to understand why many students are attracted to the idea of a pill that is supposed to make the user feel more alert, allowing students to study late into the night and work more efficiently without feeling as tired. One student—who wishes to remain anonymous—reasoned, “Stuy’s workload can be crazy sometimes, and study drugs might be the only way to maintain good grades here.” In addition to academic pressure, Stuy’s culture tends to glorify the idea that the more tired and overworked a student is, the smarter they must be. This is clear through the small competitions that erupt between students during passing periods, where whoever has had the least sleep and has studied the most is the “winner.” This adds to the normalization of the typical Stuyvesant student’s inadequate sleep schedule and their attraction to study drugs.

Study drugs are believed by many to help students concentrate and perform better on exams, but in reality, they do not increase learning ability. Unless a person is prescribed stimulants by a medical professional, there is no guarantee that the stimulants will help students study well. Stimulants such as Adderall are commonly used to treat ADHD by enhancing dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain. This helps to reduce hyperactivity and impulsive behavior, improving attention and focus. However, when administered to a person who does not have a medical reason to take them, they can have unwanted effects such as decreased concentration and diminished decision-making abilities.

The University of Colorado Boulder defines study drugs as “prescription stimulants that are used without a prescription or not as prescribed in an attempt to increase a person’s stamina, energy or concentration.” Study drugs are becoming a fixture on college and high school campuses as more and more students use them to study and cram for tests. According to the National Library of Medicine, up to over 25% of high school students in the United States have taken prescription stimulant drugs for nonmedical use. They also report that 20% of people 12 years of age and older have experimented with nonmedical use of prescription drugs. However, study drugs may prove to have the opposite effect on those who use them. They can disrupt sleep cycles and do not seem to have a positive impact on GPA or test scores. Worst of all, usage of prescription stimulants carries a risk for addiction.

Many Stuyvesant students and those in other competitive schools seem attracted to the idea of study drugs since the outcome of being able to stay awake longer to study for a test seems to outweigh the negative effects of a given drug. The anonymous student remarked, “Since Stuyvesant does give an irrational amount of work and study most of the time, study drugs might be the only way to keep grades up in the eyes of many students.” Many students are not fully aware of the negative effects study drugs can have on them due to our society considering stimulants to be less dangerous than other drugs such as opioids or depressants. However, a recent study at Binghamton University found evidence that using a study drug can prime users for other drugs. This is because study drugs are generally prescribed stimulants such as Adderall, Concerta, or Ritalin, which have high risks for addiction. Since prescribed medication is harder at times to access than street drugs, users tend to turn to illegal options such as cocaine or amphetamines to achieve a similar rush to that of prescribed stimulants. Students can also be fooled into a false sense of security when taking study drugs because they assume that prescription drugs can’t be addictive if they’re commonly prescribed by doctors.

Furthermore, prescription stimulants make it challenging to sleep because they increase alertness and brain activity. Without proper sleep, it can be much harder to focus and concentrate during an exam. According to the Sleep Foundation, sleep can help information recall and improve concentration. Due to this, stimulants may actually have a negative effect on test performance—defeating the whole purpose of their usage.

Additionally, prescription stimulants can be especially dangerous when combined with other drugs such as antidepressants or alcohol. According to the Caron Treatment Centers, in 2019, almost one in four overdose deaths involved the misuse of a stimulant drug. As vaping, cannabis, alcohol, and other drugs become more widely used among teenagers, combining stimulants with other commonly used drugs may lead to fatal consequences.

In my first year at Stuyvesant, I met students who couldn’t function without caffeine, and they were only freshmen. The anonymous student commented, “The school day really stresses and tires me out, and most of the time my only option is to drink coffee [or] Celsius so I can stay up longer, until 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., to study.” As students grow older and endure further demanding years at Stuyvesant, caffeine may not have the desired effects anymore due to increased tolerance. This may lead to the eventual use of study drugs. We as a community seem to stigmatize stimulants than other drugs less because of the belief that they can actually help us. On a Facebook study group for school, I remember seeing a post asking for ideas on how to study better. One person replied that they used caffeine pills, which provided them with enough energy to study all night.

 Overall, I’ve noticed that we tend to brush off our extremely busy schedules with careless statements such as, “I get four hours of sleep a night” or “I drink four cups of coffee a day.” Stuyvesant should work to change this mindset. This means that more of an emphasis on the dangers of study drugs should be raised in health classes. Guidance push-ins could have a session on study drugs and stimulants in general. Informative sessions could be held after school a couple of times a year. Homerooms could have conversations detailing the dangers of non-medical use of prescription stimulants while giving students resources to find safer alternative studying methods. Raising awareness about these drugs is important because of the severe consequences they can have on users—especially teenagers. Our minds are still developing, and we are therefore more susceptible to addiction and overdose. Viewing prescription stimulants as harmless is a dangerous belief for our community, and it is a stereotype that we should try to extinguish.