The Griffon News

By Megan Menard

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - He gave in to peer pressure and illegally took a Lortab. He couldn’t  sleep well, so he bought Xanax from another student. He had to stay up to study for finals, so he got Adderall from a friend.

During his college career, he has abused prescription drugs about 30 times, a University of Alabama senior who asked to remain anonymous, said.

He is not an isolated case.

Illegal prescription drug use is widespread at the university, he said, and he has seen an increase in the abuse of these drugs among UA students.

His personal observations correspond to a recent study which found a dramatic increase in prescription drug abuse on college campuses from 1993 to 2005. The study, “Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities,” was released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Nearly half of full-time students binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs, according to the report, and 1.8 million full-time students meet the medical criteria for dependency of a controlled substance.

Abuse of prescription opioids, or pain killers, increased 342.9 percent; abuse of prescription tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium rose 450 percent; and abuse of prescription stimulants such as Adderall was up 93.3 percent from 1993 to 2005, according to the study.

Mike Conway, a freshman majoring in political science, said he thinks the abuse of prescription drugs has increased because of the ease of getting a prescription.

“You can doctor shop,” he said. “It’s so easy to fake symptoms, and pharmaceutical companies are pushing doctors to prescribe their drug so they can get their name out.”

David Roberts, a physician at the Student Health Center, said he thinks the increase can be related to the growing medicalization of controlled substances.

“There are many more students who are legitimately prescribed medication,” he said. “We know from other studies that perhaps 15 percent of people who are legitimately prescribed medications will share them with others or divert them.”

Diversion of medications to others is by definition a form of abuse, he said.

He said he also thinks there has been a shift from treating the disorder to maximizing the patient’s potential.

Roberts said he thinks the increase can also be attributed to the use of prescription drugs for recreational purposes.

“I believe that diversion of prescription drugs and inappropriate use of prescription drugs occur among university students both on and off campus,” he said. “But I have no reason to believe that [the number of students] is any greater than other schools of its comparable size.”

Conway said he has been prescribed an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medication  since he was 6 years old and said he thinks Adderall is the most commonly abused prescription drug on campus because it is liberally prescribed.

He said he has been asked five or more times to share his Adderall and said he thinks students take the drug without a prescription to make school easier.