 Meet Steve Zarros, a college sophomore, and like many others his age, a student who uses Adderall as a study aid. All it took was a friend's suggestion. I heard that Adderall's like magic and stuff, so I was just like, oh, can I have one? So he gave me one, I got an A-minus on it, and it was like the first A I had gone at college. In 2010, over 18 million prescriptions were written for Adderall and related drugs. That's about a 14% increase from the number of prescriptions written in 2009. Today, drug companies face shortages. It all comes down to the pressure to succeed. Now you have to get like a 3-5 at a really good school and have like be like on an e-board of like two different clubs and like have like multiple jobs and internship, and even then you still might not get a job. Dr. Lorraine Wolfe, the director of disability services at Boston University says Steve is not alone. She estimates that as many as a quarter of students, 18 and older, have at least tried it. College students perceive this as giving them the edge to get those A's to stay up all night and, you know, write that paper rather than handing it in late. And when they're pressed for time, users say it works. You can just read a textbook for hours and it doesn't get boring and you're so focused. It helps you just zone in and focus for as long as you need to. But Zarros took it one step further when he chose to write an academic paper on the subject. The topic of the paper was like the effects of Adderall and like everyone should get it or something like that. We have, you know, these days a pill for everything so why not a smart pill? And quite frankly, it's available and fairly easy to get diagnosed so why not use it? It's a pretty slippery boundary and fluid to the point where the exact diagnostic criteria simply don't exist. But with every drug comes a risk, something most students don't consider. People can rely on it to the point where they'll feel like I'm not going to be able to study unless I have this extra boost. A drug classified Schedule 2 by the DEA, the same category as cocaine, is nothing to be taken lightly. It can produce heart irregularities, seizures, psychosis with high doses, accidental death. Though he is still not completely sure that he has ADD, today Zarros has a prescription. Once I see what I could do with it, it just kind of is like why am I struggling with this, struggling with this and then not getting any results when I could spend a quarter of the time and get a better grade. In Steve's opinion, anyone can benefit. Adderall is just like a modern miracle that makes everyone smarter. For BU-TV 10, this is Alexa Dragumas reporting.