When I was little, I knew that no matter what happened in life, I always had one thing I
could fall back on. Ice cream. Have a bad day? Eat some mint chip. Fail a test? Get that rocky road. Accidentally drop your boards and all of the associated Velcro pieces down the stairs at a speech tournament? Yeah for that one we pull out the chocolate fudge brownie supreme. But whatever the scenario, eating a bowl of cream was always enough to lift my mood… until July 7, 2015. The fatal day I attended my friends birthday party, and she had an all you can eat ice cream bar. Yeah, as amazing as that sounds, let’s just say that it did NOT go well, and I learned that there IS such a thing as tooo much ice cream. Now is this nice little anecdote leading to a speech on ice cream? No! What else is beneficial in small doses but harmful without constraints? DRUGS! Not hard drugs like meth, but a softer drug. Adderall. Throughout its history, adderall has affected thousands of lives, for better and for worse. So today, we’ll first scoop out some ice cream and delve into the origin of adderall, then add toppings to our sundae as we look at the current ways adderall is used, and finally dig into our dessert and examine the implications of adderall.
So first, let’s scoop out some ice cream and delve into the origin of adderall.
Adderall is an amphetamine. As a Medical News Today article published December 22,
2017 explains, amphetamines are powerful stimulators that increase the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the central nervous center. Dopamine and norepinephrine are neurotransmitters. They allow the neurons in our nervous system to send messages with chemical signals. These specific chemical signals send feelings of euphoria and accomplishment in the brain and help the user focus.
In 2012 The Science History Institute published a history of amphetamines. In
1932 Gordon Alles was trying to discover a better nasal spray to treat asthma. Instead he created the first amphetamine. After some research, he realized that this new drug didn’t actually clear up asthma, it created a sense of euphoria in his patients. Amphetamines became the first psychoactive drug, a drug that targets the mind instead of physical ailments of the body.
Amphetamines were sold as Benzedrine sulfate and were most commonly channeled as
an antidepressant. In 1962 a study published by the FDA estimated that around 8 billion amphetamine pills were circling the United States. Because of their widespread use, concerns about the addictive side effects were voiced, and the drug was classified as a schedule two substance, requiring a prescription. In the public’s eye, amphetamine went from being as common as Advil today, to something akin to morphine- effective when needed, but paired with dangerous side effects.
Fast forward to 1994, when Roger Griggs changed the formula of Benzedrine Sulfate,
and created Adderall. The drug was targeted for anyone with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADHD, and quickly took off as one of the leading medications. In fact, a New York Times article published on December 14, 2013, stated that in 2013, about 15% of high school students were diagnosed with ADHD, and about 3.5 million of those students were taking prescription drugs. In the span of 60 years, adderall went from being the first amphetamine to becoming one of the most popular ADHD drugs on the market.
So now that we’ve delved into the origin of adderall, lets add some toppings to our
sundae as we look at the current ways adderall is used. As stated in a healthline article, Adderall brings concentration to about 70% of people with ADHD. The same article explains the science behind Adderall in our brains. Recent neuroimaging research of the brain has shown that in the brain of a person with ADHD, the parts of the brain involved in focus and motivation receive less blood flow. After adderall is taken, blood flow increases to these parts of the brain. The brain of a person without ADHD does not start from that same deficit of blood, and scientists believe this explains why adderall has different effects on those who use it as a prescription drug, versus those who misuse the drug as a cognitive enhancer.
In recent years, Adderall has become a common way for students and professionals to
cope with the intense stress and pressure of their lives. Adderall is used to stay focused and concentrated on tasks for a long time, to achieve maximum productivity. Pills can be bought cheap from classmates or coworkers, and many doctors can easily be convinced to write a prescription to almost anybody. Quartz, a global news source that published an article October 19, 2016, explains that adults currently in their late twenties and early thirties, members of what is called Generation Adderall, grew accustomed to seeing and using adderall on their college campuses to stay above their homework loads. When they transferred to the workplace, bringing the adderall with them was a no brainer. In this way, adderall became a drug used not only for its prescribed purpose, but also as a way for people to attempt to enhance their focus.
Now that we’ve looked at the current ways adderall is used, lets dig into our dessert and examine the implications of adderall.
Adderall has both an individual and societal impact on our world. On an individual level,
it can be life changing. In the case, of Sam Finch, author of an article published in Additude magazine, he described life without adderall as frustrating and exhausting. He struggled to concentrate, had to get up to pace every ten minutes, and missed important details no matter how hard he invested himself in his work. After using adderall he was calmer and less impulsive, and began excelling at his job.
On the flip side, when misused as a cognitive enhancer, adderall has many negative
health effects. The chemical structure of adderall, an amphetamine, is very similar to that of methamphetamine, giving it the same addictive quality. Side effects of Adderall abuse and addiction include extreme sleep deprivation, amphetamine induced psychosis, and depression. Amphetamine induced psychosis is a condition seen as a heart attack or extreme panic attack caused by high blood pressure due to overuse of amphetamines. Additionally, when addicted to adderall, a user can feel as though all of their accomplishments are attributed to the drug, and that they’ve lost their sense of identity, increasing their likelihood to develop depression.
But Adderall has also had a larger impact on society. It was one of the first breakthrough
drugs used to treat ADHD, and is still used twenty years later. However, when used as a cognitive enhancer adderall poses new challenges to our world. The national institute on drug abuse attests in an article published January of 2018 that 54 million people have used prescription drugs for non medical purposes. The reality of this for highschool students is very real. John Hopkins School of Public Health States in February of 2016 that adults ages 18-25 account for 60% of people who misuse adderall. Most of these are college students, and this will raise questions about the ethics of misusing Adderall. How will this affect the accessibility of the drug for those who truly need it? What do we define as cheating, a word that evolves alongside new technology and how do we police this in our schools? With the increasing trends of Adderall abuse, society will be forced to take a deeper look at both the positive and negative effects of Adderall.
So today, we first scooped out some ice cream and delved into the origin of adderall.
Then we added some toppings to our sundae and looked at the current ways adderall is being used. Finally, we dug into our desert and examined the implications of adderall. Ice cream almost always makes me feel better, but I learned my lesson at that birthday party. Ice cream provides happiness but has its pitfalls. Similarly, when adderall was synthesized in 1932 it brought with it a bundle of implications for society, leaving the world of medicine a different place than it was before.