Students say they misuse drugs to get better grades and improve their concentration
About 16 percent of U.S. college students say they misuse prescription drugs. They say that these drugs help them in getting better grades, a survey of U.S. undergraduate, graduate and professional students has found.
More than 9 percent of students said they had misused pain killers, and about the same percentage of students reported misuse of sedatives. This is according to the 2018 College Prescription Drug Study, led by researchers at The Ohio State University.
This survey found that 11 percent of respondents with a stimulant prescription reported selling it to a friend or peer
Bulk of the students who misuse prescription drugs – including 79 percent of stimulant users, 57 percent of sedative users and 51 percent of pain medication users – said procured these drugs from friends.
Other key findings from this year’s survey include:
- 28 percent said it’s somewhat or very easy to obtain stimulants, which students primarily use to study or improve grades
- 20 percent said it’s easy to obtain sedatives, which survey respondents reported using most often for sleep or anxiety relief
- 16 percent said it’s somewhat or very easy to obtain pain medication, which students use most often to get high or relieve pain
- Only 8 percent of respondents said they kept their own prescription drugs in a locked space
More than half – 55 percent – of pain medication users reported that they had not used the drugs in the past year.
THE India story:
The India story is no different. Here are the findings from a study conducted by Ranabir Pal (Department of Community Medicine, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences), and Aparajita Dasgupta (Department of Community Medicine, All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata) in 2010.
The study says that drug abuse is coommon in students in India too.
It says:
* Out of 416 students, 52 (12.5%) used or abused any one of the substances irrespective of time and frequency in lifetime;
- 26 (15.1 %) were urban students and 26 (10.7 %) were rural. More than two-thirds (73.07%) of the respondents expressed a desire to quit substance use and 57.69% had tried to stop.
- ‘Easy availability’ and ‘relief from tension’ were the most frequent reasons for continuation of substance use
- Level of knowledge on dangers of substance use among students was very high (urban — -84.6% and rural — 61.5%) yet were successful in influencing their peer into taking up this habit (urban — 15.4% and rural — 26.9%).
