Can Drugs Improve SAT Scores?
The drug was not cocaine or heroin, but Adderall, an amphetamine prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that the boy said he and his friends routinely shared to study late into the night, focus during tests and ultimately get the grades worthy of their prestigious high school in an affluent suburb of New York City. The drug did more than just jolt them awake for the 8 a.m. SAT; it gave them a tunnel focus tailor-made for the marathon of tests long known to make or break college applications.
More on children’s access to prescription stimulants in the NYT.
If reports are to be believed, widely used at colleges around exam time as well.
I’ve never understood the adderall fad that has been circulating through high schools and colleges in the past few years. While taking drugs may help you on one test for one day, there is potential long term harm(excluding of course those who are prescribed adderall and who actually need to use it for ADHD) when this drug is used so frequently. Not only does there need to be a crackdown on adderall for non-prescription use, but I also think teachers need to make students more aware that tests like the SAT will not make or break their future careers – especially with the option to retake many of these tests until a satisfactory score is achieved.
This is horrible, and there is no doubt that it is cheating.
Many students, myself included, actually spend time learning memorization techniques and practicing the art of memory and study. The idea that these kids can just take a pill that does the same thing, frankly, makes me angry. It devalues the work that many other honest people put into it. What’s next Adderall in the workplace during performance review? This needs to be stopped, and doctors should be more strict in who they administer these drugs to.
The dishonesty and hypocrisy of our national drug policy and drug education programs for children will continue to produce more and more disastrous results just like this until we come to our senses. Kids are not being equipped with the ability to make smart decisions when it comes to drug use.
It wouldn’t be that difficult to explain to kids that ALL substances you put in your body, whether they come from the grocery store, a physician’s prescription with FDA approval, or anywhere else, come with their own unique potential for certain desirable and undesirable effects depending on a number of factors, and that anytime you want to put something in your body you must make a careful, independent evaluation of the costs and benefits associated with that decision.
Instead, we arbitrarily ban some substances and promote others, making some easily available and others more difficult to obtain (which does not curb their usage and only creates more danger and violence). Kids are given the basic understanding that anything you can get legally is good and safe, while anything illegal is bad. That is, until they take a chance one day and experience the potentially very dangerous discovery that everything they were told is a lie. We need to emulate Portugal and get rid of the failed idea that prohibition and indoctrination work better than honest education and the promotion of independent responsibility.
In my experience, schools spend more time on anti-drug and smart choices propaganda than they do teaching American history. And college students are hardly kids. Eighth graders who have been through D.A.R.E. know more about drugs than their parents.
More education will not work. Today’s “kids” have extensive experience with illegal drugs and they are not convinced, despite the best efforts of government at all levels, that the drugs they use will do lasting harm. They are convinced that flunking out of college, or doing poorly on the SAT, will do lasting harm.
My impression is that the 21 year old drinking age and its draconian enforcement, along with the push to legalize marijuana, has done a lot to increase both illegal use and cynicism.
Is Adderall really that bad?……..or is it the habitual and overuse of it that is bad?
Amphetamines and a few other drugs that are used to enhance cognitive abilities might be overused and overprescribed, but I would not demonize them because over-pressured high school students are using too much of them.
@Alexis: What would you proposed government do to “crack down” on un-prescribed Adderall use? Is expanding the drug war the best government policy at this point?
Look, there is quite often a potential for harm from psychiatric medication, but what else should we expect from human beings? There will always be those who misuse and abuse.
Good point on there being an overemphasis on test scores and that students need to be made aware that success in their careers is not dependent on test scores.
@Alex – I admire anyone who uses memorization techniques/the art of study, etc. to improve their grades as opposed to using prescription amphetamines, but there are some people who just aren’t wired for studying and focusing on academics the way that a lot of people are. I wouldn’t compare Adderall to steroids.
@Hagbard – Couldn’t have said it better myself.
@Brian: You make a good point about not unnecesarily expanding the drug war. I guess my biggest issue with this whole phenomenon really stems from students who are prescribed Adderall unnecessarily and then proceed to simply use it to do well on tests and to sell it to other students. I have no problem with the drug itself, just the use of it by people who don’t actually need it. Unfortunately, while it’s easy to identify problems like these, the solutions are often elusive and even when a solution is reached, it will never be a perfect one. A semi-solution might be to make it harder to get an Adderall prescription. And I say that not to keep people from getting drugs who need them, but to keep people who don’t need drugs from getting them. As a college student I unfortunately have too many acquaintances who will readily admit that they have their Adderall prescription just do well on tests and not because they actually have ADHD. It’s this type of behavior that I wish were avoided.
Interesting discussion!
For an illustration of how and why drug education has failed this country and its youth:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/20/top-dea-agent-wont-admit-heroin-more-harmful-than-marijuana/