I would like to respond to an article in last week’s issue entitled “Higher Learning with Adderall”. Mental disorders are already poorly understood, and articles such as this only serve to move us further from a point where people feel comfortable speaking openly about mental issues.
To begin, the article stated as a fact that the sole reason anyone would take these drugs would be due to social pressure or a need to get better grades. While the illegal use of Adderall is certainly a problem, this is an entirely separate issue. I would instead like to highlight the instances in which a doctor would actually prescribe this drug.
As outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, used by psychiatrists to classify mental disorders, “I’m not doing well in school” is not a sufficient reason to be prescribed Adderall. Instead, patients must exhibit a minimum of 5 symptoms relevant to the disorder – things such as “Difficulty sustaining attention in tasks,” “Frequent switching from one uncompleted task to another,” and “Easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli.” While these categories may be subjectively assessed, they share one common theme: they are not present in your average student. In other words, these drugs are not created with the intention of allowing students to study above their normal capacities; they’re in place to allow students who have a very well defined subset of symptoms to properly participate in their schoolwork.
Secondly, the article portrays this idea that the “medical community” is using Adderall to raise its profits. In doing this, the author has grouped everyone together – but in reality, physicians and the pharmaceutical industry are separate entities. Drug companies are, as the author claims, profit driven, and are allowed to advertise and promote their products. What they are not allowed to do, however, is provide directly to patients. Between these companies, their target consumers are physicians, bound by a code of ethics that directly prohibits many of the behaviours the article implies commonly occur. Highlights of the document include points about physicians not accepting gifts, monetary or otherwise, from industry sources, and a requirement that the physician always place the interests of their patient at the forefront.
There is absolutely no evidence that doctors benefit from prescribing these drugs to patients, nor is there any evidence of pressure on physicians from the pharmaceutical industry to prescribe them.
The issue in writing an article like “Higher learning with Adderall” is that there is already a stigma working against mental health, and many people are urged to ignore their symptoms, just “get over it,” and act in a similar manner to their peers. The idea that every person prescribed Adderall does not have real medical problems is unfairly propagated, and only serves to further legitimize the negative stigma.
The article ended with a call to remember the primary purpose of pharmaceutical companies. I, in turn, ask you to consider the primary motivations of people with disorders like ADHD. There is a high likelihood that one of your colleagues, friends, or family members has, at some point, suffered from one of the well-defined issues that characterize ADHD. It is equally as likely that this colleague, friend, or family member wants nothing more than to be able to participate in school, work, and life in general as their peers are able to.
These community members, for fear of becoming a victim of the “medical community,” or being labelled as someone seeking drugs to improve their grades, may forgo seeking professional assistance until their career, academic or otherwise, is in jeopardy. In a world where we can significantly improve someone’s life through modern medicine, misinformation and fear-mongering (such as that found in last week’s article) should not be serving as barriers to people getting the help they need.