Columnist Ross Griffith, a senior, discusses whether prescription drug abuse is academic dishonesty.
“The most immediate problem with the abuse of drugs like Ritalin – and what makes it distinctly different from past trends in drug use – is that many people feel that it constitutes intellectual cheating. I do not go so far as to say that abusing Ritalin actually is cheating, because hyper-focused students are still doing their own work; they are just doing it much faster. According to our Code of Academic Integrity, cheating is tantamount to stealing someone else’s work.”
Read his full column here.
I mean GW discriminates all over the board. . . Rx, LGBT anything- the fact that my undergrad The University of Utah has had a resource center long before Y2K in UTAH says a lot about GW’s “progressive” and “non-discriminatory” ways. . . and all of you readers will love this. . . I KNOW from personal experience of how poorly the CODE discriminates against those with legitimate prescriptions. Now trust me when I say as a student in public health Rx drug abuse is very real, very scary and nothing to take lightly but here at GW “we” like to do one thing kick people out of housing, school and do anything we can to prevent a liability. Just ask Jordan Nott and the many of us that are dealing with disabilities.
I don’t think that saying students who take Ritalin or Adderall “doing there work much faster” is fair or accurate. When a person that does not have ADD/ADHD takes a drug like Ritalin the only thing that is “enhanced” is their alertness, or “energy” I suppose. Naturally they will probably feel euphoric as well, but as far as Ross’ point goes the drugs should not have any dramatic effect. Any effect aside from boosted energy is likely a placebo-like response.
But even assuming that the drugs do have a real, positive effect on students who take them, I think whether it’s fair or cheating depends on your perspective.
Personally I don’t feel threatened or disadvantaged by anyone who takes such medications, and I don’t think I am disadvantaging people who don’t drink coffee when I do drink coffee. I know it seems like a trivial comparison to make but, really, the only distinction between the two is legal. Caffeine and amphetamines are both drugs, both stimulate, both can be abused, you can become dependent on both, etc. For the most part I believe that whatever advantage a student might get from taking a drug they aren’t prescribed, in terms of academics, is a superficial advantage. I believe such an advantage could be removed by a student not taking the drugs via making more of an effort to be disciplined and determined. At the end of the day the student not taking the drugs would be better off because his or her success would not be dependent on any thing (i.e. a pill).
So all in all I feel that the pills do not constitute cheating and the “shortcut to success” reputation they carry is fictional.
If aspirin were only available by prescription and you had a headache, would someone that bought some to get rid of their headache be disadvantaging you? Maybe, maybe not, but the wisest thing to do would be to figure out the cause of your headaches and try to fix that. If you couldn’t no matter what, maybe you need the prescription. If you could, you’re more likely to succeed in headache-free happiness than the person who is headache-free by means other than their own.
/rant.
Drugs like Adderall increase your short-term memory and awareness. This means I can learn material faster while taking the drug, and I can study longer. And unlike regular cramming, you actually LEARN the material.
If I take speed, and you drink a cup of coffee, do we experience the same thing?
Amphetamines are not the same as caffeine. That’s essentially saying a protein shake does the same thing as anabolic steroids. It does not.
Someone curing their headache does not harm me; but in a competition, which unfortunately school is, someone abusing a drug to get an advantage is cheating.