As many as one in four teenagers in the United States are abusing drugs like Adderall, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study.
Researchers have found that up to a quarter of children in some schools are abusing Adderall. Children more likely to abuse the drug were in the Northeast region of the US, were white, and had highly educated parents.
On the flip side, more than 100 schools in the study reported no drug abuse.
The epidemic of Adderall use has increased since more laws on prescriptions have been lifted and online telehealth companies like Cerebral and Dawn have become popular due to their easy access.
The drug is intended to treat ADHD, but is often abused as a party drug due to its ability to make users feel more focused and calm.
A report last month found that one in 10 teenage boys in the United States has been prescribed the drug — a figure that doesn’t count the many who are abusing it without a doctor’s prescription.
Schools with the highest number of students reporting prescription stimulant treatment for ADHD (8 percent) were also more likely to have the highest percentage of students reporting stimulant abuse.
Prescriptions for Adderall have increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. In February 2020, just before the virus hit across America, the drug accounted for 1.1 percent of prescriptions. In the year By September 2022, the figure had more than doubled to 2.31 percent of all scripts written.
Stimulants are commonly used to treat ADHD, but they are the most abused prescription drugs among teenagers.
Many children get the drug from their peers, they often have prescriptions themselves but they abuse them.
The NIH teamed up with the University of Michigan for the research, which was published Tuesday in the JAMA Network Open and used data between 2005 and 2020.
A total of 231,141 middle and high school students in 3,284 schools were included in the study.
When researchers broke down the data by school, they found that in some 25 percent of students had abused the drug in the past year.
Schools that had the highest number of children on ADHD prescriptions reported misuse of the medication.
Michigan researchers say the study highlights a ‘significant’ link between legal and illegal ADHD drug use.
Students in these schools were more likely to be white and have more highly educated parents.
Dr. Sean McCabe, a professor of nursing at Michigan State University and the principal investigator on the study, said: ‘I can tell you that a student’s experience at school is going to be different if they don’t have peers who are abusing stimulants. ‘
Stimulant therapy is a common treatment for ADHD.
Its popularity has increased dramatically in recent years. A recent study found that Adderall — the most popular ADHD drug — now accounts for 2.3 percent of American prescriptions, up from 1.1 percent when the epidemic began.
However, these drugs can be harmful if used without a prescription or if the doctor’s advice is ignored.
Chronic use of stimulants can lead to serious health problems such as cardiovascular conditions, depression, overdose, psychosis, anxiety, seizures and substance use disorders.
Mr McCabe said: ‘The bottom line here is not that we need to reduce the prescribing of stimulants to students, but that we need better ways to store, control and use stimulants among young people to prevent misuse.’
The loosening of online prescription laws during the pandemic has made ADHD medication just a few clicks away.
Before the outbreak, patients seeking a prescription for Alzheimer’s had to consult with a doctor in person before being allowed to take the drug.
But the pandemic has led to a surge in telemedicine, and those laws have been loosened. Now, one can receive a prescription after a virtual consultation.
This allowed many to abuse the loosened regulations to take the drug without needing to visit a doctor.
Additionally, online telehealth platforms that provide easy access to Adderall are starting to pop up and promote heavily on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Prescriptions for Adderall have increased over the past three years, and rising demand combined with manufacturers’ supply problems have led to shortages.
ADHD is one of the most common disorders that affect a child’s neurodevelopment.
The graphs above show that in all years, the percentage of male and female enrollees who filled one or more prescription stimulants was highest among those aged 5-19 and 15-24.
The rate of women in their twenties filling ADHD medications such as Adderall increased by nearly 20 percent from 2020 to 2021. This rate rose 15 percent among adult men ages 30 to 39.
It is usually diagnosed in childhood, but in recent years, the diagnosis of adults has increased.
Neuroscientists do not know what causes ADHD, although genetics are believed to play a major role.
The main symptoms of ADHD that appear before the age of 12 include inattention and impulsive behavior.
People with ADHD may be persistently hyperactive, unable to focus on tasks at hand, talk excessively, interrupt others and become easily distracted, among other symptoms.
Stimulants are the most commonly used medications for ADHD because they increase dopamine levels, reducing the neurochemical concentration and sustained attention, allowing some of it to re-enter the neuron that originally created it.
By reducing the reuptake of dopamine, the neurotransmitter has more time to travel from neuron to neuron, transmitting information and eventually binding to the receptor.
This improves communication in the parts of the brain that produce dopamine and norepinephrine, chemicals that help a person stay awake, alert, and think clearly.
ADHD medications are generally very effective and in many cases are critical to people’s academic and social success and growth.
70 to 80 percent of ADHD patients experience fewer or milder symptoms.
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