Is your child starting college this semester? Parents of kids who have ADHD might want to take a few minutes to have a talk about why it is important not to sell their medication to other students. A recent advertisement on the website of a college newspaper makes it clear that there is “black market” for Adderall.
It seems that there are many young adults who are in college right now who think that Adderall, (a commonly prescribed medication used to treat ADHD), is something that they can use to help them “cram for an exam”, or to write an awesome paper at the last minute. If your child is starting college, and he or she is using Adderall for ADHD, there is the potential that one or more of his or her new friends will ask to purchase some of your child’s medication.
Just how popular is the belief that Adderall is a study aid? A recent incident that occurred on the website of a college newspaper makes the answer to that question pretty clear. The Harvard Crimson is the website for the college newspaper of Harvard University. According to their Twitter account, the paper was founded in 1873, and “is the nation’s oldest continually published daily college newspaper”.
It has become fairly standard for websites to sell ad space. Sometimes, the ads that appear are run through a third-party service. This situation has led to embarrassment for many websites, when inappropriate ads appear on their pages. Such is the case with Harvard.
One of the ads that appeared on the website of the Harvard Crimson was for a product called “ADDTabz”. The company that makes it is called Genetech Pharmaceutical, which is a Florida based company. The name sounds very close to Genentech, which is a California-based biotech firm. The two companies are completely unrelated.
The Genetech Pharmaceutical website notes that ADDTabz “is now available without a prescription”. It claims it is “recognized world-wide as the ‘Adderall alternative’”, and gives a list of things that the drug supposedly improves. Click on the link on the Genetech Pharmaceutical website that says “ADDTabz Review” and you can read about how there is currently an Adderall shortage. The implication is that it would be much easier for college students to get a hold of some ADDTabz, instead.
The reason why an advertisement for ADDTabz appeared on the Harvard Crimson website was because the third-party marketing company believed that the placement would get many clicks from the demographic that would be reading a college newspaper website. It means that there is a market for Adderall among college students who do not have ADHD. Parents might want to talk to their child about this topic.
Image by Andres Sandberg on Flickr