Solutions to Decreasing Illegal Prescription Drug Use Among College Students

Macpherson
Danielle Macpherson
Molly Ubbesen
English 102
12 July 2018
Assignment 13: Full Draft
This paper intends to answer the question "What are some solutions to decreasing illegal
prescription drug use among college students?" This question is extremely important to me
because of the amount of people surrounding me that have become addicted to the use of
prescription drugs to further their lives in college. The demanding college academics, social life,
and status cause students to have an increase vulnerability to the potential use of drugs in order
to alleviate some of the pressures they feel. By accomplishing this essay, I hope to have a clear
set of solutions to decrease the prescription drug abuse problem on college campuses. This is
important because the use of prescription drugs now, can lead to a higher use in the future and
potential addiction or reliance on the drug. This essay will serve to provide multiple solutions to
the growing prescription drug abuse problem along with some background information, going
beyond what the researched information provides, with either strictly background information or
strictly one possible solution. The format of this paper is as follows, a paragraph of background
information so the reader understands what these drugs do, and then each paragraph onwards
being a potential core solution to the prescription drug abuse problem on college campuses. This
will be useful because the reader can then fully understand the topic and then move on to
thinking about and possibly pursuing the solutions discussed.
The background of this project is the main prescription drugs that college students have
been using to succeed in their college lives. Prescription drugs are defined as a drug that must be
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distributed from a pharmacy that needs a legal medical prescription to possess. The ones that are
most prevalent are Adderall, Vyvanse, and Xanax. The first two drugs, Adderall and Vyvanse are
drugs that treat ADHD and other diseases, that cause the inability to focus or in medical terms,
and hyperactivity of the central nervous system (“Mental Health Clinician”). These drugs are
stimulants that college students use to better focus themselves on their school work and perform
better on exams. Xanax is a little different because it is a depressant and is used to treat anxiety
and panic disorders (“Xanax”). This drug is used by college students to relax themselves from
the stressors they face in college, and to get away from the anxiety and pressure they feel to be
perfect. This project will be laid out by background information leading the discussion and then
lead into solutions to the abuse problem.
The first source that I researched was the Guide to Abuse and Mental Health in College
and it mainly supports the background information but goes further to collect and highlight
specific reasons that college students turn towards the use of prescription drugs. Unfortunately,
the author of this source is not available on the website, but the source supports diminishing the
amount of drugs college students use due to the negative affects it has on their health. It
highlights the pressures that college students face that result in them using drugs to either
diminish the amount of anxiety or depression they feel or increase their focus in order to perform
better on exams or papers. This source forces me to question whether the real issue even is the
use of the prescription drugs or rather it is the mental health of the students; therefore, by
possibly solving the stressors students face could lead to the ultimate decline of the drug use.
One explanation of prescription drug use is as follows, “One way students are dealing with the
enormous pressure to excel academically is to indulge in what are sometimes known as “study
drugs,” pills and tablets that boost alertness and mental activity for hours at a time” (American
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Addiction Center). To obtain these “study drugs” as they call prescription drugs “is extremely
easy and prices increase during finals week for as much as $10 per pill” (American Addiction
Center). Mental health issues that college students face in their everyday lives results in an
increased intake of these drugs. The article talks about how students turn to drugs when they
want to be relieved from their everyday struggle of anxiety and depression. It also discusses
college student’s addiction to Adderall. “As it’s “America’s favorite amphetamine,” students
may even feel empowered to openly ask for (or buy) Adderall, feeling that it gives them a
competitive advantage in an environment where pressure and stress are taken for granted”
(“American addiction center”). It is stated in the article that “74% of the students that obtained
Adderall were given it by friends who had prescriptions” (“American addiction center”). This
raises the question that, is there a way to limit the number of drugs that a person is given so that
they need the specific amount for the prescription to limit the amount that would be able to be
sold? If the student is able to be selling their prescription then do they really need it? It’s a tough
thought because I am unsure how plausible this would be but I would like to look into it for a
possible solution to the overuse of these prescription drugs by college students. It makes me
think that doctors should be more on top of tracking the amount of pills the student is being
prescribed and using themselves, maybe they could use a log of the day and time they used it in
order to ensure they are using it themselves and when appropriate. This source is very important
to the background information because it addresses why and how these students are taking the
prescription drugs that they should not be.
The next resource I use in my paper is also for the background information mainly, it is
an article from a news website, CNN. It was published in 2014 and was written by Arianna
Yanes. The article reveals that Arianna Yanes is a respected author for the website by placing a
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“special to CNN” mark right after her name. Yanes argues that college students turn to the use
of prescription drugs in order to diminish the stressors of high achievement in their courses. She
goes on to talk about how the stressors of the need for high grades and the work load add to the
students believing they need to take these drugs. She talks about how students that were
interviewed did not believe that these drugs could affect them in a negative way. This source
adds on to the past source through talking about how students are turning to these drugs.
However, unlike the previous source that gave facts and statistics of the use of prescription drugs
this article goes a step farther to say that students don’t understand the negative impacts that
come from the use of these drugs. The article states that “81% of students interviewed (DeSantis
2008) thought illicit use of ADHD medication was "not dangerous at all" or "slightly
dangerous."” (“CNN”). This proves college students do not understand that these drugs could
lead to potential addictions and affect the body in a negative way that could lead to disease in
their body. The article states that “full-time college students were twice as likely to have used
Adderall non-medically as their counterparts” (“CNN”). This shows how the extra stress
surrounding full time college students could be the result to have a greater potential to use the
study drug. Many “students say they take these stimulants for the "right reasons," to be more
productive in classes and to stay afloat in the sea of intense competition” (“CNN”). Students
truly believe they are doing the right thing and improving themselves by taking these drugs. The
students’ use of these drugs seem right at the time, but with the potential that they could have
unmotivated feelings lingering in the background which could cause them to use them for other
reasons leads to why this use is wrong. The students also miss the fact with this mindset that the
use of these drugs is in fact illegal. Making signs and having students do internet modules like
they do for alcohol could potentially lower the abuse of these prescription drugs. Being aware of
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