From its use in World War II to stimulate and keep soldiers focused to its widely-accepted use as a "healer-all," Adderall has played a deceitfully beneficial role in American educational and social history. Today, it is mostly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adults. While Adderall can be helpful in the classroom or work field because it forces ones brain to conform and focus, it also brings about social, ethical, and health-related complications that lead to disturbing long-term effects. Adderall is becoming more common and available due to overprescription by doctors and recognition of it among students as a socially acceptable means for completing tasks. Society does not embrace that cognitive diversity, a term used to describe peoples' ability to think and learn and that the ways in which they do these differ, is not only normal but also important. The pressures to succeed and fast-paced life style of the demanding modern world are key factors that push people and parents to seek stimulation for themselves and for their children. Overprescription of Adderall by doctors is the source of its overuse and misuse, which in turn causes the aforementioned social, ethical, and health problems. The use of Adderall needs to be more strictly regulated because with such a high level of accesibility, the result is a world in which an increasing percentage of adults cannot handle life or take on problem solving without the help of cognitive stimulants.

Pressures to succeed and complete all of life's daily tasks in today's competitive world are a leading factor in pushing students and adults to use Adderall, and because of its accesibility, it is easier than ever to obtain both legally and illegally. Rising college students are expected to do a wide range of extra curriculars, participate in organizations and clubs and maintain excellent grades so that they can get into good colleges and be successful. Hectic schedules like the ones that are common today cause stress among adults and students and result in inability to pay attention and complete tasks, which are symptoms that can be explained by said schedules. A recount of a high school teacher found in "Adderall Abuse on College Campuses: A Comprehensive Literature Review," by Matthew Varga talks about how students were "joining clubs without enthusiasm because they thought the membership would look impressive. They were ignoring -- or perhaps, by now, even forgetting -- what they enjoyed doing...grimly trying to squeeze out another few points on the GPA or the SAT, in the process of losing sleep, losing friends, losing perspective." The lack of interest is a problem because it makes completing tasks less enjoyable, which is a culpable factor in driving people towards Adderall. A New York Times article called "Drowned in a Stream of Prescriptions" by Alan Schwarz reveals a story about how a college student who became overwhelmed while studying for medical school entry exams turned to Adderall, became addicted, and killed himself after his prescription expired. According to his parents this student had never before exhibited symptoms of ADHD but obtained a prescription from a doctor after completing a quick survey when he realized he was having trouble studying. In this case the stress of daily life is the culprit behind the student's inability to pay attention to his studies. It is an extreme example of how lenient regulation and overprescription of Adderall by doctors can lead to serious mental and physical health issues. It also illustrates a frightening trend among the minors and young adults of the generation that is now in high school, college, and graduate school: they have this idea that Adderall is there to help when things become overwhelming. 

With the increasing acceptance of Adderall in the past three decades as a drug to treat ADHD comes oversimplification and misunderstanding of the disorder itself, which presents social and health-related repercussions. An important fact to note is that ADHD is not a medical condition; it is a psychiactric diagnosis. There is no blood test or screening that determines whether someone is attention deficit because as long as there are no other concerns besides ADHD, there is nothing wrong with the individuals health. It is determined through observing behavior and comparing observations with what is considered "normal and acceptable." Stephen Tonti, who gave a TedTalk called "ADHD As A Difference In Cognition, Not A Disorder," proposed that ADHD is not a cognitive disorder so much as a cognitive difference. He points out that society pins cognitive diversity down as an issue that needs to be fixed, when really it is something that can be advantageous when the person is removed from the things that do not pair with his or her cognitive abilities. It is not that the individual needs to alter himself to fit the institution, but that he needs to alter the institution to fit him. Tonti states that he was lucky enough to have parents and teachers who endorsed his hyperactivity. He plays seven instruments and claims to be able to hyper-focus on movie clip edits for twelve straight hours, all without medication, and his ability to do this is a result of his ADHD. According to Tonti, counter to society's pressure to excel in institutions and fixed curriculums, it is a question of finding and excelling in the things that captivate each individual's interest since he considers people with ADHD to be "attention different" rather than "attention deficit." 

It is important for the public to be educated about ADHD and the problems that the overprescription of Adderall can lead to because people need to be aware of the long term damage that this trend points towards. In "ADHD Is Best Understood As A Cultural Construct," Eric Taylor describes ADHD in terms of the brain and it's legitimacy as a disorder. He talks about how efforts to standardize criteria for ADHD across the world have not been successful because of cultural differences that affect the way ADHD symptoms are measured. He explains that someone with ADHD does not have a clinically abnormal brain and that "immaturity in children is a biological fact, but the ways in which this immaturity is understood and made meaninful is a fact of culture"(Taylor). Distractedness and hyperactivity are normal in children and it is problematic when society labels them as a disorder. Taylor addresses giving young children Adderall as a major social mistake because it leads parents, teachers, and doctors to disengage from an important and natural social responsibility: raising well-behaved children who are capable of coping in the world. This in turn creates the ethical misconception that it is appropriate to endorse the "pill for life's problems." By providing a pill that makes people function the "right" way, doctors discourage people from realizing their own abilities to problem solve, and condem millions of children to a life of dependancy on a drug that does not have long-term benefits.

The overprescription of Adderall is an ethical danger to society because due to the fact that anyone can get a prescription, the line between fairness and advantageous behavior in any situation where people have to perform becomes blurred. Obtaining a prescription for Adderall so one can complete all of his tasks is not illegal; however, it is unethical because the Adderall users "take the drug with the knowledge that it is not needed to simply 'level the playing field,' but with the intent to gain an advantage through 'cognitive enhancement'"(Fenton, Wunderlich 2010). Adderall has the same effect on people who do not have ADHD as it does on people who do have it, so when people take Adderall to focus for an exam or study for ten straight hours, fairness must be questioned. For example, if a student takes a dose of Adderall before the SAT because like most high school students she has trouble focusing for four hours on a standardized test, and her scores improve by 100 points on each section, does this take away the validity of the SAT as a means for measuring future academic success? The scores no longer have meaning because they do not represent the students abilities; they represent what she can accomplish when she takes cognitive enhancers. Based on this, and if we define the SAT as a college entry exam, the student is potentially going to get accepted to a college that would not want her otherwise, and she is taking an acceptance away from anoher student who took the exam honestly instead of delving in advantageous behavior. This raises questions of ethics because the top colleges accepting students that they think are capable of handling rigorous curriculums are actually receiving people who rely on pills to accomplish things, whether the pills are prescribed or not. Since Adderall gives students "a chemical advantage by granting them superior concentration," work completed under its illicit influence reflects a dishonest image of an individuals abilities. As mentioned before, the ease with which doctors prescribe Adderall leads to easy access, abuse and misuse, and is the source of this question of ethics.

Besides being unethical and socially harmful, overprescription of Adderall causes serious and potentially irreversible side effects and health complications. In his TedTalk, Stephen Tonti states that doctors should be reluctant to give out ADHD medication for a number of reasons, one of which is the fact that it can take a toll on peoples' bodies. He says only people whose bodies can truly handle the effects of Adderall should be allowed a prescription. In Tonti's case, withdrawal due to chemical dependency presented itself in the form of headaches and discomfort. He states that when he was a child he tried multiple medications, and when he stopped taking them in the summers, his mother would have to "coax the migraines" out of him (Tonti). To some people, this is a minor side effect, and luckily it is reversible. Other more serious side effects caused by Adderall appear while the patient is using the drug. For example, patients may experience fast, uneven heart beats, dangerously high blood pressure, chest pain, insomnia, weakness, anxiety, loss of appetite, negative changes in behavior and social interactions, and sometimes death. Canada suspended the circulation of Adderall in 2005 because 20 people across the country dropped dead due to heart failure. This is an example of an irreversible side effect. The drug is considered one of the safest on the market; however, it is still a drug and the occurence in Canada shows the effects of doctors' lenient attitudes towards prescribing Adderall. It is so important for doctors to make sure that their patients' bodies can handle drugs before handing out prescriptions. Remembering that people with ADHD are healthy, it is appropriate to conclude that Adderall puts healthy people at risk of becoming unhealthy by causing complications within the body.

There are ideas, mostly among students who benefit from illicit and/or legal Adderall use, that argue that drugs like Adderall do not make you smarter, and therefore taking them cannot be considered unethical. That is true: they do not make you smarter and will not make you know information that you have never seen before. If you take a dose of Adderall, you are not going to be able to tell someone how tall Mount Everest is; unless you already have the information tucked away somewhere. This is where the Adderall advantage becomes unethical. It alters peoples' cognition, or ways in which they think and learn, which allows them to study more efficiently, retrieve information more quickly, and concentrate more easily than they would otherwise be able to. It is unethical because it teaches people that avoiding consequences is okay. For example, in cases where non-ADHD people procrastinate instead of studying for an upcoming exam, they can buy Adderall illicitly to crash-study. As mentioned before, after studying they will only be able to present information that they reviewed because Adderall does not make people smarter; however, the outcome is still going to be a higher grade than they would have received without the help from Adderall, as long as the exam consists of the information they studied. The consequence for failing to study, assuming the student did not have any major distractions (i.e. tragedy, health concerns, etc.), was avoided. It is important for people to learn that a "pill for life's problems," although it may result in short term benefits, is unethical and causes damage to society in the long term because people lose perspective of fairness and create a dishonest image of their abilities. 

People with ADHD are hyperactive and can have difficulty in certain social situations due to their disorder, and although hyperactivity is a characteristic symptom of ADHD, anyone can experience it since it is often the result of excess energy. When people take medication to suppress this excess energy, which is just one of the many things the medications treat, they are ruling out the possibility of dealing with it in a natural and safe way. There is no 'cure' for ADHD, but because doctors are so quick to prescribe medications, people are either misinformed about the disorder itself or forget that there are natural remedies for suppressing symptoms that do not involve highly addictive drugs. A 2013 study on how physical activity affects different ADHD symptoms showed that exercise is a legitimate means for improving the attention and social-related difficulties people with ADHD experience. According to the study, exercise ameliorated the symptoms of ADHD, and the subjects were "less impulsive and demonstrated fewer attentional and cognitive problems"(Kamp, Sperlick, Holmberg 2013). In terms of social behavior, the subjects overall exhibited less indications of depression and anxiety and had fewer social problems. This shows that people can reduce their ADHD symptoms through exerting the excess energy they have. Unlike the use of medications, it is not the easy way out. It involves commitment and self-discipline, but the alternative path of medication leads to dependency and chemical alteration of a brain that is not considered clinically abnormal. Although physical activity is an example of a healthy and natural way to reduce ADHD symptoms, it does not work for everyone; however, there are conveniently many other ways to exert energy and direct ones focus, for example involvement in respectively interesting activities, it just depends on what works for the individual. Another benefit of finding a natural remedy for ADHD symptoms is that it will not cause any unwanted or dangerous side effects as medications almost always do. Doctors should reccommend natural options for reducing ADHD symptoms, which have been proven to be legitimate, to patients instead of being so lenient about prescribing medications because, as established before, people with ADHD are healthy and ADHD medications do not improve health.

Most of society's existance has been Aderall-free, and in the past people with ADHD, although even the diagnosis did not yet exist, were fine. People who suffered from ADHD were not societal failures; their parents were not searching for a drug to calm their distracted, hyperactive children. The people who had ADHD before it existed were healthy, and the people who have it now are healthy, so this raises a question of ethics behind the idea that doctors are selling sickness. In their book Selling Sickness: How The World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All Into Patients, Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels discuss how drug companies are "targeting the healthy and the well," and how "the ups and downs of daily life have become mental disorders"(xi). Their book talks about how the issue is not that more and more people are sick, but instead that lifestyles and fears of not achieving society's expectations drive people to believe they need to correct their inconsistencies, when in reality most said inconsistencies are normal because cognitive diversity is normal. Due to the fact that doctors and drug companies are so willing to prescribe and manufacture Adderall, perfectly healthy, ordinary people are led to believe that they have a problem and that they need help tackling everyday life, when really being stressed out and overwhelmed is a fact of life that nobody escapes. Before ADHD was described as a disorder, symptoms did not keep people from functioning, nor did they keep people from being successful. The knowledge that cognitive diversity exists and the knowledge that there are legal drugs to alter cognition that help people do the things they need to get done presents an ethical dilemma; cognitive diversity exists for a reason and to deem it a disorder is a problem because theoretically everyone can have ADHD; everyones cognition can be raised, not just those who are diagnosed with ADHD, so the result is a future illustrated by cognitive equality and addiction.

