An Ethnography
of Adderall and
Wolverines
ILLUSTRATION BY TAMRA TURNER
PAGE LAYOUT BY SARAH CHUNG
2 — Wednesday, March 30, 2022 // The Statement
Content warning: Mentions of substance abuse
Becoming a university student means experi-
encing many ‘firsts,’ one of which being the first
time you might try stimulants — caffeine, nico-
tine, cocaine, the list goes on. For me, Adderall
arrived months too late, but it changed my life
nonetheless.
Had I known the achievement-obsessed lion’s
den I was walking into when I arrived in Ann
Arbor my first time, I probably would have left
that same night. It’s hard to see this environment
when you’re sitting on the Diag, watching people
bounce a basketball around, friends walking side
by side, smiles on faces and block ‘M’s embla-
zoned on shirts.
What does it mean to be a Michigan Wolverine?
How many tour groups have to walk by me before
I get the sudden urge to let it all out, to scream in
their face and warn them that Ann Arbor is bru-
tal, that it’s eat or be eaten on a daily basis. Dur-
ing those hallowed ‘Campus Days,’ what they
don’t tell you about being a Michigan Wolverine
is the number of hours you’ll spend ruining your
eyesight staring at a computer screen, nearly sob-
bing because you can’t figure out how to calculate
an integral. To hear roommates screaming down
the hall and witness strangers wiping away tears
in the UGLi, afraid to admit defeat.
How many more nights can I handle looking
up from my screen and seeing the sun rise in the
distance? How many more eyes can I look into,
drained of their color and plump, before I finally
say something?
There is a communal suffering we all bear wit-
ness to, sometimes falling into the very trap our-
selves, and yet this is something many of us refuse
to talk about. It’s time we change that.
***
My story with my ADHD diagnosis began dur-
ing my very first semester on campus. It was fall
semester and COVID-19 was at its peak, reducing
me to Zoom lectures that I couldn’t bear to attend
and homework groups I couldn’t bother to meet
with. I had all the time in the world it seemed, just
like during quarantine, but something was differ-
ent.
My mind was persistently aware of the school-
work slowly piling up, but I could do absolutely
nothing to induce movement in my body to
change anything about it. Sitting behind the worn
down desks of South Quad dormitories made me
feel queasy, a constant reminder of all the things I
had promised to complete and never did.
Then winter semester came around, and I was
still wasting hours of my time working on Canvas
discussion posts and applications to internships I
knew I wouldn’t get, and still falling behind my
peers. It was a rat race, and I was losing.
Eventually, I got my slice of heaven: I was diag-
nosed with ADHD my sophomore year of college,
and I could finally silence my frenzied thoughts
with a little pill each day. Then, as more and more
people learned of my treatment plan, and I began
to ask those around me what they think of stimu-
lants like Adderall, I quickly realized that my
medication was a valuable commodity — phar-
maceutical gold to certain Michigan students.
When you’re a Wolverine, you’re either buying
or selling, trading or spotting — like at any other
American university, Adderall is a precious com-
modity in our collegiate climate. You hook friends
up with people who know people, facilitate silent
exchanges on Venmo with cryptic descriptions,
an illegal trade we’ve almost normalized. But
these are symptoms, not the cause, of the increas-
ing dependence on stimulants among college stu-
dents.
I set out to follow the breadcrumb trail, tracing
the origins of the campus-wide Adderall abuse by
seeking out students and asking them about their
stories with this coveted little pill. In some sort of
twisted way, I desperately sought a solution from
the words of those affected most, the people who
sit next to you in lecture as you both ignore each
other’s despair — a silent recognition that needs
to be vocalized.
Everyone remembers their first time
Like most things, drugs often sneak into your
life quietly and unexpectedly, but they leave a big
impact. It’s not exactly a secret that college stu-
dents are twice as likely to use stimulants than
other non-students at their age, and that 5 to 35%
of students have tried Adderall without a pre-
scription, but numbers don’t always tell the entire
story.
Data can illustrate trends and correlations,
but it says nothing about the real motive behind
campus-wide Adderall use. Sometimes, uphold-
ing the notion of ‘leaders and best’ pushes us to a
breaking point, a point that can be remedied by a
productivity pill.
Here’s what my peers had to say about their
first time with Adderall.
A sophomore majoring in philosophy in LSA,
like many others, happened to stumble upon
access to Adderall through pure luck. “I think
I tried Adderall
for the first time
in
my
sopho-
more year of high
school — a friend
had it. And they’re
like,
‘yo,
you
should try this.
It’s crazy, it helps
you focus and it
makes you feel
good.’ And I was
like, ‘oh, sounds
good.’ I’m like,
it goes with the
ADHD thing, but
I’m very impul-
sive and have no willpower. So, if something’s in
front of me, I’m gonna take it. … So that was it and
I loved it.”
For those with ADHD, Adderall can give us a
breath of fresh air, as the winding and persistent
overlapping conversations in our minds die down
to mere whispers.
An LSA sophomore majoring in sociology
reflected on when they first became lovestruck
by the pill’s effect. “I was 15 or 16. I bought it from
my drug dealer who I used to (buy) these THC
pills from. He kind of skipped out on me a couple
times, he’s just so unreliable because that’s how
drug dealers are. But he felt bad. And I think he
just threw one (Adderall) in for free. … I took it
and … I sat down and drew pictures, which is
very strange for me, because I don’t like to focus.
I don’t like to pay attention to one thing, but I did
it. I spent two hours on it. And afterwards I really
liked (Adderall).”
A computer science student in the college of
LSA reflected on their first couple of experiences
with Adderall. “The first time I ever got Adderall,
I bought it off a friend. It was actually Vyvanse,
but same shit different name. The first time I took
it was actually at the Union at 6 p.m. to do work, or
it was to go to Necto. …That’s how I got it the first
time, because someone offered to give it to me.”
Like many students, this particular individual
found Adderall by way of a friend who had it, rath-
er than intently seeking it out themselves. Thus,
an informal but meticulously-cultivated network
of Adderall users and dealers begins to take form
on campus.
Additionally, they mentioned the first time
they took Adderall in conjunction with another
drug, an extreme dose of caffeine. “There was a
period of time where I was staying up every night
for quite a while. That’s happened quite a bit in
computer science. And one of my friends who has
an Adderall prescription, she opened up one of
the capsules of her Adderall and poured it into a
Bang energy (drink). And I thought, this is a good
idea and I need this right now. And so I drank it.”
According to fellow students, finding Adderall
also seems to involve being at the right place at the
right time.
The computer science student continued, and
our conversation quickly turned to the cyclical
nature of Adderall usage on campus: “Anytime I
mentioned that I have (Adderall) someone will be
like, yo, where’d you get that? Literally everyone,
like if you say the word Adderall on this campus
everyone goes like, where’d you get it from? Okay,
you pay five? I pay 10. Where’d you get that bro?”
Successfully acquiring Adderall on campus
is indeed a game of knowing people who know
people.
It’s not a sin if you’re not a sinner.
How do we define the ends justifying the
means? “Drug abuse is bad” is quite an archaic
notion, almost too black and white for our genera-
tion. Researchers cherish categories and numbers
and correlations, but I find them to be a detached
approach to complex anthropological questions.
Humans are smart, adaptable and first and fore-
most, curious. And curiosity, it seems, is a major
factor of first-time Adderall use.
BY VALERIJA MALASHEVICH, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com