The rise of students taking ‘smart drugs’
Professor warns of ‘hidden addiction’ in colleges
STUDENTS across the country are abusing socalled psychiatric ‘smart drugs’ in an effort to deal with the stresses of college.
The head of addiction services at St John of God hospital, Professor Colin O’Gara, said third-level students are relying on drugs prescribed for ADHD and sleep disorders in the hope of improving their grades.
And Prof. O’Gara warned that while there has been an increase in incidents of this ‘hidden addiction’, the true extent of the problem is not known.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Today With Miriam O’Callaghan, he said desperate students are turning to Ritalin, Adderall, Provigil and herbal medicines in an effort to increase their concentration at exam times. He warned that the Spoke out: Prof. Colin O’Gara drugs were ‘dangerous for people who don’t have a psychiatric condition’, and that their effects vary significantly from person to person.
Prof. O’Gara further warned that calling them ‘smart drugs’ is entirely wrong.
‘They are quite the opposite, although there seems to be a huge amount of information on the internet saying that these things can help,’ he said.
Prof. O’Gara said some people believe you can ‘mess around with your neurochemistry’, but he dismissed this idea as ‘complete and utter nonsense’.
He added that students waste valuable time trying to obtain the drugs and ascertain the correct dosage, and would be better served by having a coffee and getting down to work.
‘There is nothing new about amphetamine abuse but for some reason it has caught the imagination of the student population,’ Prof. O’Gara explained.
He said some of the medications were being ‘diverted from ADHD clinics’, but that the majority of the drugs were being obtained online where students had no idea of the medicine’s composition or potency.
Damien McClean of the Union of Students in Ireland said that while little research has been conducted into the issue, anecdotal evidence suggests that usage is more prevalent in ‘competitive courses’.
He said courses such as law and medicine were affected by the issue because a ‘culture’ of helping classmates does not always exist when courses are extremely high pressure.
Mr McClean called it ‘an act of desperation’ by students often juggling part-time jobs while also under extreme pressure to perform in ‘high-stakes examinations’ where their annual grade depends on just one week of tests.
Prof. O’Gara said studies had revealed there was ‘a market’ for such drugs on college campuses abroad where up to 15% of students reported taking them.
He said that while figures on this were not yet available in Ireland, many students were ordering pills online from countries such as India and China using social media sites or the dark web to place orders.