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Black Market for ADD Drugs
In this month’s newsbreak, Michelle Jarboe introduces her audience to a growing phenomenon on U.S. college campuses: students misusing stimulants prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). While medications like Ritalin and Adderall are intended for kids with doctors’ diagnoses, more and more students are taking these drugs without ever seeing a doctor, just to help them concentrate, churn out papers over night, and cram for exams. Some are selling the drugs around campus for a profit. Michelle shares her first-hand experience:
The few times I took Ritalin, I got the pills from a boyfriend whose parents were psychiatrists. He didn’t have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), but mom and dad were willing to write him a prescription so he could stay up nights to cram for exams. I was 17, and figured if someone’s highly educated and expert parents would casually hand him a drug, then it had to be safe.
In her story, Michelle likens the misuse of ADD drugs to under-age drinking, and she says because the medications are legal, students aren’t too afraid of getting in trouble for experimenting with them.
The story raises some provocative questions about the lengths students will go to, in high-pressure academic settings, to perform well. She also uncovers the micro-economies that have sprouted up around these drugs. Michelle’s story is likely to inspire lively discussion about the kinds of things policy-makers, educators, and students themselves should do to curtail the black market for Ritalin and other stimulants.
To get the full feel for the story, you can find the full script and audio, and also check out extended interviews and additional research data on Youth Radio’s website: Black Market for ADD Drugs. Black Market for ADD Drugs inspires lesson plans for language arts, science, health, economics, and study skills along with race and class analysis of drugs and other opportunities to bring critical media into the classroom.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.2 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
Subject: LIFE SCIENCE
NS.9-12.6 PERSONAL AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES
Subject: HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.1 HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION
NPH-H.9-12.2 HEALTH INFORMATION, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
NPH-H.9-12.3 REDUCING HEALTH RISKS
NPH-H.9-12.4 INFLUENCES ON HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.7 HEALTH ADVOCACY
Subject: ECONOMICS
NSS-EC.9-12.1 SCARCITY
NSS-EC.9-12.2 MARGINAL COST/BENEFIT
NSS-EC.9-12.3 ALLOCATION OF GOODS AND SERVICES
NSS-EC.9-12.4 ROLE OF INCENTIVES
NSS-EC.9-12.5 GAIN FROM TRADE
NSS-EC.9-12.7 MARKETS -- PRICE AND QUANTITY DETERMINATION
NSS-EC.9-12.8 ROLE OF PRICE IN MARKET SYSTEM
NSS-EC.9-12.9 ROLE OF COMPETITION
NSS-EC.9-12.13 ROLE OF RESOURCES IN DETERMINING INCOME
NSS-EC.9-12.14 PROFIT AND THE ENTREPRENEUR
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Language Arts:
First person reporting:
In school writing, we often make a distinction between “objective” reports and personal narratives. The same is true in journalism, and yet in this story, as in many Youth Radio pieces, Michelle Jarboe blurs the boundary between investigative reporting and first-person commentary. How does Michelle use the “I” in her story? How does she present “hard” data? How does her own experience experimenting with ADD drugs affect her credibility as a reporter, and your interest in her story? When do you use the “I” in your own writing, and when do you leave out your own personal experience?
Balance: Michelle includes several perspectives in her story, each representing various positions with respect to the market for ADD drugs on college campuses. What perspectives can you identify? How balanced is her report? Does she take a strong side in the debate about the seriousness of the phenomenon she describes, or what should be done about it? What implications do you draw from her report? Are any perspectives missing, in your view? No reporter can include every perspective in any given story: what other voices would you want to hear?
Context: Usually, when we hear stories about teenage drug use, the focus centers on illegal substances like marijuana or cocaine. Very often, those stories criminalize youth and sound alarms about the effects of these substances on young people, their families, and their communities. Michelle’s story draws attention to an illegal practice surrounding legal drugs, and most kids misuse ADD meds not to get high, but to perform well in school. How is Michelle’s story different from the typical report on drug use among youth, not only in terms of the kinds of drugs she’s talking about here, but also in terms of the way she presents her narrative?
Health and Science:
Side effects: Students can talk about common drugs that they are exposed to or have heard of, such as marijuana, ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, crack, tobacco, and alcohol. What’s the difference, in their view, between experimenting with illegal drugs and the misuse of stimulants as described in the Youth Radio story? In groups, they can choose a drug to research along with its history, slang terminology, side effects, and uses (medicinal, recreational, etc.). Have students create posters and share with the rest of the class.
Stress effects: Michelle Jarboe describes a pressure-filled academic environment on college campuses: “...I was driven to do well in school, and couldn’t see my way through all the papers, tests and projects on two or three hours of sleep a night. That is, until I encountered my friends’ little pills.” What is the academic environment like at your school? What are some ways students can advocate to reduce stress levels in their schools and create a healthier environment? Who would be the stakeholders students would have to influence? What arguments would convince those key players?
Survey says: Students can create a survey where they can ask other students anonymously about their experiences with drugs and make graphs and charts to show their findings. What was or was not surprising about the results?
Social Studies and Economics:
Drug Dealing: Is drug dealing simply a product of supply and demand? In studying Prohibition, what can be learned from the outlawing and then regulation of illegal substances? Who are all of the players who benefit from and profit handsomely off of the pharmaceutical sales industry, both legal and illegal? How does selling Ritalin compare to selling an illegal substance?
Drug legalization: Some have argued that drug legalization would actually diminish the allure of using drugs, because they wouldn’t be so taboo. But as Michelle shows in her piece, some students are using Ritalin and Adderall specifically because they are legal, and therefore perceived as relatively safe. How does the growing misuse of these drugs contribute to the debate on drug legalization? Students could stage a formal debate on the topic or write an argumentative essay.
Micro-economies: What are some of the economic principles driving the market for ADD drugs? What defines a micro-economy? What about a cottage industry? To what extent do these terms apply to the market described in Michelle’s story? What role do economic factors play in creating incentives for students to buy and sell these stimulants for uses other than those for which they are prescribed? To what extent should the pharmaceutical industry be held accountable for abuses of ADD drugs on college campuses? Who profits from the use of these drugs? Who pays the cost?
Study Skills:
Procrastination: Students talk about the usage of Ritalin to help them to study and write papers at the last minute. What are some other strategies that could help students to study and write papers without procrastinating?
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Ads that subtract: How does the media market drugs to youth? Students can find song lyrics that mention drugs and alcohol, movies that promote drug usage, and examples of commercials where government approved pharmaceutical industries advertise drugs on commercials. Have students research guidelines drug advertisers must conform to in their television campaigns. Are there special rules regulating marketing campaigns targeting children and teens?
Race and class analysis: How do students who use Ritalin and Adderall compare with stereotypical drug users, as portrayed in the mainstream media? See if students can find any research on the demographics of young people using these drugs, with and without doctors’ prescriptions, as well as demographics of young people using other drugs. How accurate are mainstream media portrayals? What consequences do students who misuse ADD drugs typically face? Are young people ever incarcerated for using or selling these drugs illegally? How do those incarceration rates compare with punishments faced by uses and abuses of other drugs by teens?
Black Market: What is a black market? How is the word “black” being used here? Why do Ralph Ellison, Frantz Fanon, and Maya Angelou, among other writers, challenge this negative usage? What are some other ways of characterizing the kind of market Michelle describes?
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4. MEET THE COMMENTATOR
 Michelle Jarboe, 22, is a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her senior year, Michelle was editor of The Daily Tar Heel, the independent daily student newspaper on campus. A Michigan native, Michelle interned at publications including The Roanoke Times and Ladies' Home Journal before returning to North Carolina to work as a business reporter and retail columnist at the News & Record in Greensboro.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• "Evaluating Health Warnings: Ritalin Abuse" (The San Francisco Chronicle 24Mar06)
• "The Adderall Advantage" (The New York Times 31Jul05)
• "Use of Attention-Deficit Drugs is Found to Soar Among Adults" (The New York Times 15Sep05)
• "Stepping Over the Line: Students Abuse Stimulants Like Ritalin to Stay Alert" (The Ithacan 31Mar05)
• Negative Connotations of Black (Wikipedia 04Apr06)
• Ritalin Drug Background (Center for Substance Abuse Research 02May05)
• IMS Health
• National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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