When Paul left home to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder, he took his prescription for the drug Adderall along with him. The medication is normally used to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but Paul - who now believes he had been misdiagnosed - no longer used it for that purpose.

Instead, the journalism/business student says he took Adderall only occasionally and with a very specific intent: to help him focus on homework, or to stay up all night cramming for an exam. He also shared the pills with other students who did not have prescriptions, but who wanted Adderall for the same reasons he did.

Fellow students "always wanted my Adderall for studying," says Paul, who asks that his last name not be used. "Certain individuals couldn't study without it. They figured, 'If I study all night on Adderall, I'd better take it for the test, too.' "

Adderall is the amphetamine most widely prescribed to treat ADD/ADHD. As with other amphetamines, regular users of Adderall can soon become dependent on it to get through the day.

Dubbed "kiddie coke," Adderall is being used - and abused - by increasing numbers of high school and college students on campuses across the United States.

Although students often take the drug together - sometimes in study groups - their intent is not recreational. Rather, they use the stimulant in an attempt to enhance their powers of concentration and improve their academic performance.

"It's a performance-enhancing drug," says Punyamurtula Kishore, president and founder of the National Library of Addictions in Brookline, Mass., and a physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "They start accessing the drug legally, and then they find they can sell it for five or 10 bucks a pill to college kids."

Pressure to earn ever-higher grades appears to be a primary motivation in the Adderall craze, say Dr. Kishore and other experts. In Massachusetts, where parents and school officials often have high expectations for students, more prescriptions are written for Adderall than in any other state.

Often, students begin imbibing while still living at home, and sometimes parents - unaware of the dangers involved - tolerate their misuse of the drug.

"A lot of families look the other way so that kids can stay up and study," says Kishore. "It's a myth that they'll do better on exams ... [But while on the drug] they feel they can conquer the world. Then they come down and crash."

Although Adderall is often perceived as legal since physicians and pharmacists are involved in its dispensing, ultimately it is an illegal drug when used by somebody without a prescription. Campus policies on handling student drug users and dealers vary, but range from a warning with counseling to expulsion.

It's hard to quantify the extent of Adderall abuse among students. Certainly the availability to children of drugs to treat ADD/ADHD has soared in recent years.

In the last 10 years, the number of preschoolers taking ADD/ADHD drugs has tripled; the number of school-age children has multiplied by 20. More than 2 million American children are prescribed drugs for ADD/ADHD. Adderall represents about a quarter of the market.

Statistics on the legitimate use of Adderall, of course, don't reveal anything about patterns of illegitimate use. However, some experts suggest that the fact that the drug is viewed as a legitimate one may enhance its appeal - and its danger - to youthful users.

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