Partial fill on an Adderall prescription, only 11 out of the normal 30 were able to be prescribed.
Courtesy of Associated Press
By Kaitlyn Bock
USF students’ schoolwork is being negatively affected by the nationwide Adderall shortage.
In October 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a shortage of immediate release amphetamine mixed salts, also known as Adderall. The medication is an FDA-approved treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy.
According to Lee Health, Adderall is a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine, two stimulants for the central nervous system, used to help improve focus and concentration while reducing impulsively through increasing levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain.
“Adderall is used for ADHD and basically, it helps people focus and sort of calms them down to help them focus on what they are doing,” said Brian Bohunicky, a Publix Pharmacist.
Kade Schaefer, a junior at the University of South Florida, said he has not been able to get his medication for a week and a half.
“This means that when I do get it in, I get a smaller dosage and have to pick and choose the days that I get to focus,” Schaefer said.
When a pharmacy is low in stock or out of stock of the drug, customers are forced to receive partial fills or reach out to their physician to send the prescription to a different location or rewrite it for a replacement drug.
“I’ve been forced to go back to my doctor to update my prescription three times, after not being able to get my prescription filled at my regular pharmacy,” Schaefer said. “This has made getting my meds that much more difficult.”
Many students with ADHD rely on Adderall to help accomplish their schoolwork, focus on assignments and give them the motivation they need without all of the distractions.
“Adderall gives me the capability to focus on my studies without distractions,” Schaefer said. “Without Adderall, my brain is typically scattered and unfocused, but the medication helps fix all of that.”
Pharmacies like those at Publix, Walgreens and CVS said they are trying all that they can to help customers get their medications easier but they are limited in what they can do because of the Schedule II Controlled Substance classification of the drug. This means that Adderall is a drug with a high potential for abuse, which could lead to a severe psychological or physical dependence.
“It’s been tough,” Bohunicky said. “It’s not a medication that is easy to partial fill or give less, so it’s tough, a lot of people have had to go elsewhere, but we try to do the best we can to help them.”
Adderall is a medication that is difficult to take one day and not take another day because people grow reliant on it to complete tasks and get through their day.
According to American Addiction Centers, the withdrawal of Adderall is a serious issue. People can experience fatigue, sleep disturbances, depression, anxiety, paranoia, irritability and other symptoms can occur within a few days and last up to several weeks after the last dose of the medication.
“It is not really a medication that people want to miss a dose of or be out of because it affects certain neurotransmitters in the brain, dopamine and norepinephrine,” Bohunicky said.
The dependency of the medication is where students see the most impact. They are able to focus on schoolwork and finish all of their assignments one week, but the next they are out of their prescription and the motivation to finish assignments is gone.
“I have grown dependent on the medication for school, my grades tend to slip when I do not have access to it,” Schaefer said.
Students spend a majority of their time doing schoolwork and studying, and students who rely on Adderall to help them focus through hours of homework have been impacted the most.
“School work is where I notice the most negative impact,” Schaefer said. “As a full-time student I spend a lot of time doing schoolwork and not having the capability of sitting down and doing assignments is very difficult without my medication.”
