Slave to the stimulants

http://www.purdueexponent.org/index....&story_id=2593

Slave to the stimulants
By Joey Marburger
Publication Date: 10/26/06

Generation Y lives in a world of 8 ounce energy shots, grande
all-night-a-cinos and little productivity pills.

In a pressured academic environment, students from the age of 18 to 24 are
pressed to succeed. Some have natural motivation, but most turn to
stimulants such as caffeine. Sometimes that isn't enough, so students find
prescribed stimulants to help them get ahead in this competitive generation.

Marty Green, clinical social and addiction specialist for Counseling and
Psychological Services, said that the current generation shares a lot of
trends with the general public as a whole. But college students are under
constant pressure to succeed, a pressure that could cost you.

"A lot of research is about the pressure to perform and produce outcome and
the level of competition is at higher levels with this current generation,"
said Green. "So yeah, folks are going to find ways to maintain that level of
performance."

He said most generations of college students aged 18 to 24 have always
experienced stimulant use due to not sleeping enough and the demand of
academics. But today there are more ways to receive that extra jolt of
energy.

"Stimulants have been prominent in our culture for a while," said Green.
"It's always been one of those venues that says it can make you feel better.
Now, there are just more venues."

The venues being the massive increase in the number of energy drinks on the
market and prescription stimulants such as Adderall.

"There are certainly more options," he said. "There is a market for the
energy drinks."

Besides energy drinks and coffee, college students use prescription
stimulants that are illegal without a prescription. A study was conducted at
the University of Michigan that followed undergraduate college students and
illicit use of ADD and ADHD medications.

The study found that 8 percent of the 689 students sampled used prescription
stimulants that were not prescribed to them. The most common uses were cited
as the following: 58 percent used it for concentration, 43 percent to get
high and 43 percent to increase alertness.

"Some of the medications out there, especially for ADD, those are legitimate
prescriptions for those that have been diagnosed," said Green. "If you
haven't been diagnosed, you are basically taking speed medications and there
are implications."

Generation Y, however, is not an isolated case. Both Green, and Joyce Micon,
coordinator of the drug and alcohol program for CAPS, urged that too much
stimulant use can be harmful to anybody but when it occurs in an academic
setting it can be viewed as normal.

"I think the risks associated with stimulant use certainly increase the more
they become viewed as a normal means of providing a competitive edge to
academic performance," said Micon.

And although Generation Y might not be more stimulated than generations in
the past, it has experienced more available ways to receive stimulants
through more energy drinks and a high availability of unprescribed Adderall.

"I have begun to hear of students being admitted to local emergency rooms
because of taking high doses of legal stimulants," said Micon. "If the risks
associated with stimulant use aren't widely known, then students assume more
is better in terms of using them."

If you are experiencing trouble with stimulant use, you may contact CAPS at
494-6995.