If you follow higher education news, you may have seen reports of a recent study by Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks showing that college students spend a lot less time studying than they used to—about ten hours less per week compared to several decades ago. That raises a question: With so much extra time, what are college students up to?
Some, it seems, are using their free time to recreationally use prescription drugs.
I recently asked some undergraduate students at NC State, on condition of anonymity, about on-campus prescription drug abuse. What they told me was troubling: Illicit use of prescription drugs has apparently taken off in recent years. But what they said is also troubling for another reason: Their perceptions do not match reality. According to official statistics, drug abuse among college students is on the rise but it is not nearly as widespread as some (including my sources) believe.
The idea that prescription drug abuse is becoming “normal” could have dangerous implications for those tempted to engage in such potentially destructive behavior. As anthropologists have noted, blowing the problem out of proportion, for example by writing “the sky is falling” news stories, could cause the uninformed (or those with weak moral constitutions) to shrug and say, “Well, if everyone’s doing it, it can’t be that bad. And if it is that bad, well, I’ll only be as bad off as everyone else.”
The students I spoke to, including a pre-law history major, a business management major, and one ex-engineering major who now intends to be a landscaper, have all used prescription drugs for recreational purposes. They estimated that about 50 percent of their friends regularly used prescription-strength drugs for nonmedical purposes. Their estimates for the total student body were less certain, but they ventured that the number was similar, if not quite so high. One of my sources, whom I will call Ernest, offered, “Maybe my friends are just crazy, but I think a lot of people are [using these drugs].”
The most popular prescription drugs among this particular group and their friends are the painkillers Percocet, OxyContin, and Vicodin; the anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Klonopin; and stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall. (On a side note, the recent deaths of two students at my old high school have been linked to Klonopin abuse).
In response to the question, “Why use prescription drugs and not cocaine or other more traditional illicit drugs?” they speculated that most people who abuse prescription drugs choose them because they seem safer. In comparison to being scraped from a pot in a backwoods meth lab, these drugs are manufactured on a large scale by companies with high quality control. Doctors prescribe them all the time to regular people on a regular basis.
Even so, the students I talked to understand that there are significant risks. Ernest did not personally know anyone seriously injured from recreational use of prescription drugs, “But [I] have heard of instances of people getting hurt and even dying due to falls etc. from mixing prescriptions with alcohol.”
Since Ernest’s friends recognized him as having taken the most un-prescribed psychoactive drugs, I asked what effects it had had on his college career and/or life. The effects seemed dramatic. He told me he now cares a lot less about school than he did before. “In high school,” Ernest said, “I was very studious. I cared a lot about getting good grades.” And now? “And now, I just don’t care. I really don’t.” Has he noticed similar effects in his friends who have also used a lot of the drugs? “Yeah I have heard of other people feeling the same way. If someone is abusing prescription drugs they are in a different state of mind and usually put off important tasks and begin to not think about consequences to their actions as much.” Ernest’s original intent was to obtain an engineering degree, but now he has settled for the less ambitious career of commercial landscaping.
Official statistics confirm my sources’ belief that prescription drug abuse is rising rapidly. The latest available statistics on recreational use of prescription drugs, however, do not square with their perceptions—at least not nationally.
For the general population, there was a four-fold increase from 1998 to 2008 in substance-abuse treatment admissions involving non-medical use of prescription narcotics, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). CDC statistics reveal that the number of emergency room visits for nonmedical use of opioid analgesics (painkillers such as Percocet, Vicodin, or Oxycontin) increased by 111 percent from 2004 to 2008. ER visits over the same period involving nonmedical use of benzodiazepines (sedatives such as Xanax and Klonopin) increased by 89 percent.
Teenagers and college students seem to be the most affected by prescription drug abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that accidental-poisoning deaths among those aged 15 to 24 rose 113 percent between 1999 and 2004, a development mostly blamed on prescription drug abuse. According to SAMHSA figures for 2007, the 16-24 age cohort was between two and three times more likely than the average person to have used prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes in the past year.
So, prescription drug abuse among young people is a serious problem. However, if American College Health Association statistics are to be believed, then Ernest and company’s assessment of the scale of the problem is vastly overblown. According to the ACHA’s Fall 2009 National College Health Assessment, only 2.9 percent of college students have used antidepressants that weren’t prescribed to them in the last 12 months, 8.1percent have used prescription strength painkillers, 3.6 percent have used sedatives like Xanax or valium, and 4.7 percent have used stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall.
Even if all these were added up, meaning zero overlap between abusers of different types of prescription drugs (highly unlikely), at the most 19.3 percent of college students have abused prescription drugs in the past year, dramatically less than my sources’ estimation. It’s more likely to be 10 percent, given that the highest individual category is 8.1 percent and there is almost certainly significant overlap.
Upon hearing these statistics, my sources considered them unrealistic. “I would say they are 5 to 15 percent more per each category,” Ernest said. “I would say stimulants might even be as high as 40 percent among all college students.”
It seems that over-perception of bad behavior is a common problem among college students and people in general. To remedy the situation, Wesley Perkins of Hobart and William Smith Colleges led a successful campaign to alter students’ perceptions of the prevalence of bad behavior (what he calls “social norms”). After a three-year effort focused on drinking, reports of property damage were down 36 percent, missed classes were down 31 percent, and unprotected sex was down 40 percent. Arrests for liquor law violations also were nearly cut in half from 1997 to 2000. “We are, indeed, herd animals,” says Perkins. At HWS and several other colleges where the program has been tried, it certainly appears that way.
Could a similar approach be used to cut down on prescription drug abuse?
NC State has tried, on a limited scale, an approach to curbing problem behavior similar to that used by HWS. However, according to Chris Austin, assistant Director of Health Promotion and Substance Abuse Prevention at NC State, it remains seriously underfunded. “In the past 2 years we’ve not been able to carry out the campaign as is suggested in the literature . . . due to budget issues,” Austin said. (It may be worth noting here that NC State has two—yes, two—centers dedicated to solar energy research. But waste and redundancy in higher education is a story for another time).
In conclusion, we would do well to recognize prescription drug abuse as a growing concern, be able to recognize the warning signs in loved ones, and get help for them if necessary. So be concerned—but don’t panic! Overstating the problem could have a detrimental effect, perhaps even equal to not recognizing the problem at all.