A government-funded study found that one in four American teens in some schools misuse prescription stimulants like Adderall.
The research found what experts called a “contagion effect” — the risk of illegal use being higher in places where many students had legal prescriptions. The children most likely to use drugs were in the Northeastern region of the United States, who were white and had highly educated parents.
There was great variation across the country. While up to a quarter of children in some schools were on “study drugs,” more than 100 schools reported no drug use at all.
Adderall use has skyrocketed during the pandemic after many prescription drug regulations were lifted, and online telehealth companies such as Cerebral and Done have popped up, allowing for easy access.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, warned that these illicit drug uses open the door to children’s exposure to the potentially deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl and that awareness needs to be raised about these risks.
Schools with the largest percentage of students (12 percent or higher) reporting prescription stimulant treatment for ADHD were likely to have the largest percentage of students reporting stimulant abuse (8 percent).
Prescriptions for Adderall have skyrocketed during the Covid-19 pandemic. In February 2020, before the virus broke out across America, the drug made up 1.1% of prescription drugs. By September 2022, the number had doubled to 2.31% of all written texts
The supply of medicines has changed rapidly, and what looks like medicines — bought online or shared among friends or family members — can contain fentanyl or other powerful illicit substances that can lead to overdoses. Dr. Volkow said it’s important to raise awareness of these new risks for teens.
“It is also essential to provide the resources and education needed to prevent abuse and support adolescents during this critical period in their lives when they face unique experiences and new stressors.”
The drug is intended to treat ADHD, but is often misused as a party drug or study drug due to its ability to make users feel more focused and alert.
A report last month found that one in 10 teenage boys in the US has been prescribed the drug — with those numbers not counting the many who abuse it without a doctor’s approval.
Stimulants are increasingly being used to treat ADHD, but they rank as the most abused prescription drug among teens.
Many children are treated with drugs by their peers, who often have prescriptions themselves but exploit them to misuse them.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) partnered with the University of Michigan for the research, which was published Tuesday in gamma network Open and used data from 2005 to 2020.
In total, 231,141 middle and high school students across 3,284 schools were included in the study.
The students were included in the Watch the Future survey, which anonymously collects data about the behavior and attitudes of American teens.
The research found an infectious effect on students in schools where ADHD is 36 percent more likely to abuse drugs — regardless of whether they have a prescription themselves.
The Michigan researchers said the study highlights an “important” link between legal and illegal ADHD drug use.
“I can tell you that a student’s experience will be different in a school without peers abusing steroids versus a school where one in four peers abuses steroids,” said Dr. Sean McCabe, professor of nursing at Michigan and the study’s principal investigator. “
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 makes up 2.3 percent of American prescriptions, up from 1.1 percent at the start of the pandemic.
However, these medicines can be harmful if used without a prescription or if doctors’ advice is neglected.
Continuous use of stimulants can cause serious health effects such as cardiovascular disease, depressed mood, overdose, psychosis, anxiety, seizures, and stimulant use disorder.
“The key takeaway here is not that we need to reduce prescribing steroids to students who need them, but that we need better ways to store, monitor and screen access to and use of steroids among young people to prevent misuse,” Mr. McCabe said.
And the relaxation of online prescribing rules during the pandemic has made ADHD medication available with just a few clicks of a button.
Before the pandemic, patients seeking a prescription needed to consult a doctor in person before they were allowed to receive the drug.
But the pandemic rule aimed at keeping people away from health care facilities and preserving access to prescriptions allowed people to receive a prescription only after a virtual consultation.
Moreover, online telehealth platforms that provide easy access to Adderall have begun to rise and are advertised heavily on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
The graphs above show that across all years, the percentages of registered males and females with one or more prescription steroid fillers were highest among those ages 5-19 and 15-24 years, respectively.
The rate of women in their 20s who take prescription ADHD medications such as Adderall increased nearly 20% from 2020 to 2021. Among adult men ages 30-39, that rate jumped nearly 15% in that time.
Prescriptions for Adderall have skyrocketed over the past three years, and increased demand combined with supply issues for manufacturers has led to shortages.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common disorders affecting the development of a child’s nervous system.
It is usually diagnosed in childhood, but recent years have seen an increase in adult diagnoses.
Neuroscientists have not identified a cause for ADHD, although it is believed that genes play a major role.
The initial symptoms of ADHD, which usually appear before the age of 12, include inattention and hyper-impulsive behavior.
People with ADHD may be constantly agitated, unable to focus on a specific task, talk excessively, interrupt others, and be easily distracted, among other symptoms.
Stimulants are the medications most commonly used to treat ADHD because they increase levels of dopamine, a neurochemical key to focus and sustained focus by slowing how much it is reabsorbed into the neurons that produced it in the first place.
By slowing dopamine reuptake, the neurotransmitter has more time to travel from one neuron to another, transmitting information and eventually binding to a receptor, which helps messages within the brain to be transmitted and received more effectively.
This improves communication in the parts of the brain that produce dopamine and norepinephrine, a chemical that helps a person stay awake, pay attention, and think clearly.
ADHD medications are generally very effective and in many cases are critical to people’s academic and social success and development.
between 70 and 80 percent of patients When you take ADHD medications, you experience fewer or milder symptoms.
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