Tufts Daily

Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Paige Fulton Concerta, like Adderall and Ritalin, is a drug prescribed to help attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). While ADHD medication has been used for years to help students study, usage of other prescription drugs is on the rise on college campuses.

College has long been regarded as a time of self-discovery - a path that is often realized through experimentation using trial and error. While alcohol and marijuana have been present in the college social scene for decades, in recent years students have been turning to prescription drugs in their quest to experiment.

While, according to Tufts Alcohol and Drug Treatment Specialist Jeanne Haley, alcohol is "the most abused drug on campus," other substances are becoming readily apparent at Tufts and across the nation.

Last October, the Daily published an article about the rising use of heroin in Somerville. While the areas surrounding Tufts had experienced greater heroin use at the time, it was OxyContin, a prescription painkiller considered a "gateway" to heroin, that was more popular on campus itself, according to Haley.

Shirley Haberman, chair elect for the American College Health Association's (ACHA) Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Coalition, said that many students are looking no further than their peers' medicine cabinets to get a fix.

"There are so many different prescription drugs out there, but based on [The University of Michigan's 'Monitoring the Future' Study], roughly 10 percent of college students use non-medical prescription drug products," she said,

Stacy Andes, chair of the ACHA's Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Coalition, agreed with the results of the study.

"When compared with their peers not attending college, evidence suggests that college students are illicitly using prescription drugs at higher rates," she said.

Experts have found a variety of reasons to account for such drug use. According to a statement issued by the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, the number of first-year college students who arrive with symptoms of anxiety and/or depression is rising. These students tend to be the ones who "are more likely than their peers to use alcohol or other drugs" at college.

Continued...

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