Pills!

A look at the pill POPing habits of the students of the 5-Cs

Mina Hoffman / Claremont Student

By Ellen Moscoe
Scene Editor

It seems the pill-popping habits are changing, and (not wanting to be left behind) the Claremont Student is having a look at what people are taking, why they are taking it, and what it is doing to our lives.

We are aware by now that pills are being taken at the 5-Cs and beyond.  Students take them to help performance at work and at school, and to enhance activities like sex and partying. These winners have been dubbed "lifestyle drugs" because they enable a lifestyle that would not be possible without Mommy's little helpers. Once addicted to the lifestyle that these drugs allow, it is difficult to go back. The snowball effect is frightening: If these drugs become any more popular, it will be expected that we all function at the level of these pill-popping maniacs. What will happen to nap time? Will anyone even notice that there are roses, much less stop to smell them? Will we reach a point where our bodies can't continue to be inundated with so many pills and that they will simply refuse to swallow? And then, if we are all so addicted, what will we do? Could the fall of the United States as a world power be caused by one little pill? We at C-Stu not prepared to make that prediction. All we can do is report the facts.

Note: All names in this article have been changed to protect the students.

8:00 a.m.: The alarm goes off, Sarah stumbles out of bed. She shakes her head, looks around in a daze, and heads straight for the pill bottles. Her selection doesn't quite rival Costco, but it's enough to occupy a prominent place in her small dorm room. She grabs two caffeine pills and crushes them up with the handle of a kitchen knife. She then proceeds to snort the pills, put the cap back on the bottle, and head for the shower -- all in less than two minutes.

Before rushing to breakfast, the freshman at Claremont McKenna will take her Adderall and pocket a caffeine pill for later in the day. Then, since today is Thursday, she'll come back to her room before dinner, pop a Vicodin, and head down to a friend's room to party. "I pretty much take Vicodin before every party. It's really fun. But the other stuff, caffeine pills and Adderall and stuff, those don't even seem like drugs."

For an increasing number of students at the 5-Cs and around the nation, pill-popping is beyond fashionable and is now simply commonplace. People are always looking for new ways to get high (hence why we've tried to smoke every plant on the planet), but this pill-popping phenomenon is more than just looking for kicks. It's a major change in the way we view drugs and the way we expect ourselves to live. Students who take these drugs are looking for more productive studying, more waking hours, and better sex (who isn't?). These drugs are the result of the increasing effort to be more productive and have more pleasure every minute.  Vicodin, Adderall, Ritalin, caffeine pills, and other "lifestyle drugs" seem to have lost their stigma and are as benign as a cup of coffee. What's up with that? We hope to provide some answers about the drugs, what they do, why people take them, and what they're doing to our lifestyles.

The Rundown:

Adderall: It's prescribed (by actual doctors) for ADHD. The active ingredient in Adderall is amphetamine, so you can imagine why some take it without a prescription... People sell it illegally to students for a variety of reasons, most frequently to help them study more efficiently and do better in classes. Beneficial side effect: Significant weight loss is common. (We at C-Stu are here to inform you, not to make suggestions. We do not recommend that you try this at home. Or school.) Ritalin, prescribed for ADD, is like Adderall but not as widely used.

Vicodin: An opiate prescribed for severe pain relief, as in the kind you get from invasive surgery or sudden loss of a limb. For everyday use, it's a bit much. Vicodin has some severe side effects that mess up your digestive system (ever wonder why people who take Vicodin also buy Metamucil by the gallon?), and it makes you drowsy and gives you that "la la la,” in the clouds feeling. Great for relaxation, maybe not so great for school. People take it as a stress-reducer and a party drug, though mixing any pain reliever with alcohol is dangerous.

Caffeine pills: Fast, cheap, and easy. Usually people take over-the-counter brands like No-Doz. You can take them orally, anally (I am not making this up), or crush and snort them. The side effects of the drug itself are just like drinking too much coffee: the jitters, dehydration, and a generally unpleasant demeanor. But the side effects of snorting them are a bit more involved: bloody noses and the like. Caffeine pills are usually just to stay awake for studying or to get up after too little sleep. Sometimes they're also used as a party drug, along the lines of the famed Vodka Red Bull.

Valium: Valium is a benzodiazepine derivative, which puts it in the same category as other "benzos." It's used for anxiety relief and depression when prescribed by a doctor, and people take it for anxiety but also as a party drug. It can interfere with normal activities since it causes drowsiness and fatigue, in that respect it's a lot like Vicodin. 

To more fully understand this lifestyle and why more and more people want it, we decided to investigate the drug habits and the psyches of fellow 5-C students. We didn't have to look far -- the drugs are more ubiquitous than Uggz (but not quite as offensive).

Take, for example, a typical day in the life of Claire, a junior at Pitzer. She restricts her pill-popping to maximum-strength No-Doz. "Basically, I take one every weekday morning, to get up. There's one on my bedside with a glass of water, and taking that is the first thing I do when my alarm goes off."

She says these pills have become a way of life, but likens them to other students'  dependence on coffee in the morning.  "I'm not a coffee drinker, but I don't get very much sleep because of my schedule, usually less than five hours. I take the caffeine pills to wake myself up no matter what amount of sleep I've gotten." The no-sleep epidemic has always plagued college students -- it is a trademark of the American university system. But until now, staying up until 4 a.m. every morning was a feat that required super-human strength. Today it requires roommates who share your strange sleeping patterns and caffeine pills before class.

Claire didn't start taking caffeine pills until college, when she began sleeping less and less. "I started taking them intermittently, for mornings after I stayed up particularly late, my freshman year. During my sophomore year, I took them just about every other day, when I had early morning classes, and by this year I started taking them every day." Claire says she is more addicted to the lifestyle she has now, the fast pace and late nights. Going back to having a normal schedule that required dedicating six or seven of the 24 precious hours in a day to sleep doesn't hold any magic for this busy girl.

When I asked her if she would be able to perform at the level she does now even without the pills, her answer was direct and clear: "Definitely not. I don't feel like I could do without them any more."

Claire's perspective on the drugs is typical of students at the 5-Cs. She doesn't seem embarrassed about it -- she let me interview her, at least. "In general I don't feel uncomfortable with my pill usage. I don't take them for fun; I use them to get by, not to get high." [PULL OUT]

Her classmate, Kelly, agrees. "When my friends and I take Adderall or caffeine pills, we don't see it the same way as doing other drugs like coke. They just seem like something that helps you, like a vitamin." I wouldn't go so far as to liken them to vitamin C, but Kelly's reasoning makes a strange kind of sense.

Caffeine is still caffeine, whether it's a pill or coffee. If some Wall Street brokers or network TV anchors need a double espresso on their way to work, why shouldn't college students -- who sleep far less -- rely on the most powerful and efficient form of caffeine?  Claire agrees: "Overall I feel that caffeine in one form or another is simply indispensable to a student's lifestyle."

Students' schedules are ruled by these drugs. Each activity has a partner drug to go with it, and they all have to be scheduled in. (Your grandma isn't the only one who sorts her pills in a pale-yellow Monday-through-Sunday pill box.) The result is that many students have planners that look like heavy dosage schedules for severely depressed, anxiety-ridden, post-surgical narcoleptics with ADHD. (PULL OUT THESE 2 SEN-STARTING WITH EACH) In reality, the kids who take all these pills are just normal students, trying to do too much work and have too much fun.

One hypothesis that tries to explain why we normalize these drugs takes us back (in typical psychological fashion) to childhood. Starting when today's college students were young, doctors began prescribing mood-altering drugs for kids. The number of children on Ritalin and other ADD medications skyrocketed during the 80's and 90's. In 1985, only half a million children took Ritalin. Today, between six and seven million take it with a doctor's prescription. For a growing number of kids, it became the norm to take some kind of medication before school each day.

Chris, a freshman at Pitzer, has been taking Ritalin since he was in third grade. "It just seems normal to me to take meds every day. Once you take something for that long, other pills don't seem weird, they're just normal, too, I guess." This sentiment is echoed by a Scrippsie first year who says "I have a weird concept of pills, that they don't actually do anything. They're just so small, how could they really be that strong?" Sure, they do look like Altoids, but let's not be silly.

Growing up with the mentality that drugs are good, that they help us do better in school, play better at home, feel better in general, what are we expected to think? We simply have extended this attitude to a larger sphere of drugs. Instead of just taking his Ritalin in the morning, Chris now takes Ritalin, Vicodin, ecstasy, and sometimes acid--although not all upon waking up, and certainly not all before class. "I'm just de-sensitized. Anything in pill form, I'll take it."

Adderall is a fairly recent addition to the college students' pill selection. It has become so hot recently that some students who have a prescription for it don't want anyone to know. In casual conversation, a first year at Scripps told me "I take Adderall, but please don't tell anyone! I don't want people to know I have it, or they'll bug me to sell them some." The obsession with Adderall hasn't floated over the Claremont bubble. In fact, it has hit us very hard.

In the isolated oasis of privilege that is the 5-Cs, many students haven't been able to leave their boarding schools behind. Students still carry their high school paranoia about the elusive 4.0 and refuse to believe that self-worth is not defined by grades. This kind of thinking is most likely the result of high-pressure families and prep school propaganda.

The pressure caused some students, like Pomona freshman Katie, to turn to pill-popping in high school. "I couldn't get my work done, there was too much. My friends took drugs to study better, so I tried some, too. They worked great, I got really good grades. When I got here, I bought Adderall right away. I wouldn't want to try to work without it." The carry-over druggies, as I like to call them, are a special brand. They have lived so long on the brink of an emotional breakdown, anxiety-ridden and stressed out, that I felt bad asking them if they could stop taking these drugs. It caused them to panic.

In high school, getting into college was tons of pressure. We all know that. But I expected to find that once we got in, some of that stress would subside. Haven't we proven ourselves worthy? Don't we deserve to relax, take fun classes, and finally reap the benefits of having killed ourselves in high school? I thought that was the point, but apparently not. For the carry-overs, college is the opportunity to do all the things they did at prep school, only better. "Now I can do work at night so easily, and everyone is up so late, I feel like days are twice as long, so I do twice as much," reasons Katie. Ambition is great, but not when it starts to sound like insanity.

Adderall has one other use that has absolutely nothing to do with academic performance, and this is the most logical reason I've come across. Pomona sophomore Anna says that sex on Adderall is like sex on coke. A cross-over drug that enhances your grades and your sex life, wrapped up in one little pill! No wonder it's so popular. Anna has also experienced sex with someone on ecstasy, and says sex on ex is more sensual, that it becomes "about touch." Anna doesn’t just take Adderall, she rattled off a laundry list of benzos, pharmies, hallucinogens and various other sleep aids and study drugs. She takes whatever is on hand, whatever is available. She doesn’t ask questions about where they came from (but admits Mexico is a common source), only makes sure “that I’m never the first one to sample a batch.” She acknowledges that having friends who use heavily is a major influence on her, especially at the beginning of college. Now, she pops recreationally and for studying, alone or with a group, and she still gets good grades and has an active social life- even if she doesn’t remember parts of it. On the up side, she says, “I don’t really drink, so at least I’m saving my liver.”

To get an alternate perspective, I tried to find someone who didn't take pills of any kind. Believe it or not, this was much more difficult than I had imagined. I tried just asking around, and even stalking students on Facebook. Finally, I met Alex, a senior at CMC, who assured me he doesn't take any pills at all. Alex manages quite well, even for a non-GMO student. The politics major gets straight A's and does plenty of extra-curriculars. He's even what one might call successful. "Taking caffeine pills made me feel like crap. I tried them once, and I hated the way I acted. You can't replace sleep." Wise words. Alex also worries about the physical effects of taking so many pills. "Aren't there side effects? When I think about it, I don't want to have to rely on things like that when I'm fifty, so I don't want to start now."

He brings up a good point. Are we going to stop? If students now get so used to a twenty-hour workday, will we all of a sudden relax when college is over? Doesn't seem to fit the pattern. The thought that in twenty years, the workforce will be full of pill-popping men and women who never get more than four hours of sleep and take pill cocktails at the water cooler is a bit unsettling.(PULL OUT)

Adderall's effect on lifestyle is far-reaching as well. Because it is so effective and makes students perform so much better, some are beginning to question whether it evens the playing field or tips it in the other direction. Since so many students take Adderall without a prescription, are they getting an unfair advantage in the classroom? Alex weighs in on this issue: "I have friends who get Adderall illegally, and I think it makes everything so much easier for them. They can sit and study for eight hours straight. Who does that?" To take a pill that enables you to sit in a library for a whole day and study seems, on one hand, unhealthy. But on the other, think of how much you could get done!

The pill epidemic is on its way to completely changing the way we live. It started as an underground movement, Ritalin and Vicodin slowly creeping into everyday use. But now, those almost seem passé. New drugs (and newer ways to take them) are becoming routine on college campuses and in the real world as well. In an era that values efficiency and speed above all else, pills seem the logical drug of choice for the 21st century. Portable, compact and (almost) a fashion accessory, they have done for caffeine what iPods did for music. Our look at the inner dealings of pills at the 5-Cs has led us to one undeniable conclusion- pills are here to stay. Many students have decided that the pros (and there are many) outweigh the cons (there are just as many). These colorful little buggers have slipped into our lifestyles and there seems to be no going back. It appears inevitable that now every college experience will involve at least one run-in with some sort of tablet -- but be careful!  You might get hooked and start skimming off the supply of another student in need- that’s when the real problems begin.