Markets for Prescription Stimulants: Doctors, Dealers and Daily peers

Abstract

The use of ADHD medication for enhancement purposes among student populations is by now a well-known phenomenon, particularly in North America but by now also in
many other parts of the world. However, we lack knowledge about how these prescription stimulants become accessible to students and therefore the aim of this article is to shed light
on how students gain access to study drugs. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in New York City and Copenhagen among a total of 30 students, as well as study counselors, university teachers, psychiatrists, drug dealers and the police. The empirical material suggests three main markets for study drugs, namely, through daily peers, doctors and dealers. The analysis shows that there are different moral dilemmas connected to the different ways of accessing study drugs, but that it is not the drug as such that is the object of moral negotiation but rather the way of acquiring and using them. The study drug markets are thus an expression of which story the students want to tell about themselves, and which person they are or want to become in our contemporary consumer culture.