My Grandson tells me he takes unprescribed ADHD drugs before tests, common?

[PolymerMan]

Originally Posted by marigolds6

The sole purpose of Adderall is to learn by cramming, and specifically to learn a greater amount of content by cramming than you could without it. There has actually been a long standing discussion in education of whether or not cramming should be considering cheating, how you would monitor and combat it, and how to minimize it. The reasons for preventing cramming are the same as the reasons for preventing other forms of cheating, it is just more difficult to regulate (what is the line between cramming and studying?)
Meanwhile, the illegal use of Adderall and other prescriptions drugs to cram has much brighter lines that make it more simple to define use that breaks the rules and is cheating. Schools have been able to consistently spell out enforceable policies that define the illegal use of stimulants to study. Breaking those policies is cheating. There are specific administrative consequences as well as clear learning consequences.

So wrong. The "sole" purpose of Adderall is not to cram. It's to help focus.

[PolymerMan]

Originally Posted by marigolds6

The student who goes to the pill mill is committing an ethical and possibly moral breach.

But if you review the thread, you can see that people have already stated that there can be no ethical argument against using ADHD drugs to cram for test, nor moral argument against it. No you are saying there should be no legalistic argument against it either?

If it is okay to do anything that is ethically, morally, and legally wrong, then what can you not do? Is it not even cheating to stab the top student in the class the week before the final to try to lower the curve? (Actually happened to my college roommate over an OChem class.) Is it then not cheating to check out all of the reserve articles for the entire term and just pay hundreds of dollars in fines to keep other students from the material? (Also know someone who tried this.) Apparently not.

People who use ADHD drugs to cram are not passing the test with their own knowledge. They are using stimulants and related drugs to temporarily boost their short term memory with no actual gain in knowledge or increase in understanding. They are just as surely cheating as the person who has the answers written on their arm or who writes out the essay ahead of time and brings it into class with them.

Is drinking coffee/soda ethically and morally wrong?

[10by2012]

Can't normal caffine pills (no doz) give the same results ?

[3700]

If this was so then they would not be able to answer the question
but they can this means they retained the knowledge they took in while under the influence.

They are not cheating like you describe below,
Is the smarter person and or the person who retains knowledge better than you do, cheating?
Is the person who only needs to study 2hrs and not the 5hrs like you did and they a better grade than you cheating?

If you can recall the information on test day, how it got into your brain is moot.

Originally Posted by marigolds6

People who use ADHD drugs to cram are not passing the test with their own knowledge. They are using stimulants and related drugs to temporarily boost their short term memory with no actual gain in knowledge or increase in understanding. They are just as surely cheating as the person who has the answers written on their arm or who writes out the essay ahead of time and brings it into class with them.

[DSS94]

In a way, what they're doing is worse than cheating. Cheating carries only academic penalties. Getting caught abusing prescription drugs can be a much bigger problem.