Adderall to Blame for College Suicide

To over-achieving college students, the crazed study-drug Adderall may seem like the perfect solution to succeed, but recent reports say that Adderall may have been the cause of Kyle Craig’s suicide.
Kyle, who attended Vanderbilt University, took his life in May, when he stepped out in front of a passenger train. He was 21.
His family said they didn’t know he was suicidal. His father, Walter Craig, held back tears as he said these affectionate words:
“Kyle was confident, not arrogant,” he said. “He was bright, beautiful — a thrill a minute, focused, happy, achieving and social.”
It may have been his need to succeed that caused his death. To reach his academic goals, he started taking Adderall, a legally-prescribed drug for those who have attention deficit disorder. The drug offered the energy and alertness he needed to stay up all night studying and do well on the next morning’s exam.
Though Kyle had a 3.5 grade point average, he saw other fraternity brothers with higher averages, and he felt the need for improvement.
But in his junior year in 2009, Kyle told his parents that he lost interest in things he loved the most, like going to fraternity parties. Though his parents thought this was just a sign of him maturing, they know now that it was an early sign of his Adderall abuse, which leads to a growing psychosis.
“Knowing that someone else is taking them and that gives them the edge, he was willing to try it,” said Kyle’s mom, Andrea Craig. “If he’s into something, he’s in all the way — to take it to the next level.”
At first, Kyle purchased the drug from a group of friends for $10. He later faked symptoms of ADHD so that he could get a legal prescription from a doctor.
Unfortunately, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported earlier this year that getting a hold of a prescription by faking the symptoms for ADHD is getting easier to do and tougher to regulate.
Via ABC News, Image via TheGoodDrugsGuide.com
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