Brain Gain update

What are the long term effects of taking Adderall off label?

How do they so easily acquire the Adderall and Ritalin?

How long do the effects of Adderall last?

How long does it take for the effect of Adderall to diminish?

What are the legal consequences for taking off label drugs?

•  Taking Ritalin or Adderall enhances a person’s reaction time, memory, and decision making.
•   People who take the pills need to be watched for warning signs of suicide.
•  Study showed that students who use Adderall have lower gpa, lower ACT scores, and withdrew from more classes than students who did not.
• Side effects include lack of appetite, headache, inability to fall and stay asleep, dry mouth, abdominal pain and discomfort, weight loss, and restlessness. Others include raise in blood pressure, raise in heartbeat, difficulty breathing, chest pain, migraines, losing consciousness, blurry vision, and seizures.
• Kids on ADHD drugs are on average 4.4 pounds lighter and one inch shorter than their peers.
• Adderall is as addictive as meth and can over time distort reality for people. Doctor Glen Hanson

http://www.thenews.org/2012/12/01/adderall-usage-ineffective-not-recommended-for-finals-week/

http://www.yalescientific.org/2012/05/study-drugs-and-neural-enhancers-science-and-controversy/

http://www.sideeffectsbase.com

http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/news/20070720/adhd-drug-does-stunt-growth

Brain Gain

             Recently, people have been starting to take drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin as cognitive enhancers to be able to work more and sleep less. College students have started using them in order to be able to write papers all night and still have energy the next day to go to classes, work, an/or parties. The student feel pressured to get good grades and want to be able to party on the weekends so they enable themselves to do so by taking cognitive enhancers.
             In the workplace, people are starting to use them to get a slight edge over the competition. Being able to work for a few more hours than the average employee can make someone seem very dedicated and more attractive to advancements or raises. They rationalize use of the drugs because they improve efficiency and seem to have no downside.
             Taking these cognitive enhancers is similar to using plastic surgery to make yourself look more attractive. People argue that there is no real difference between using Adderall or Ritalin to make yourself function more efficiently and making yourself look better through plastic surgery. If one is ok, why isn't the other? They claim that all it does is help you live up to your full potential.

             The thing I found to be the most interesting in this article is how taking cognitive enhancers was compared to plastic surgery. People are using it in order to work at their full capacity in order to work harder and longer and to make their abilities look more attractive to potential employers. It is an academic steroid that people use to get an edge over the competition.