How L.A. Got Hooked on Adderall

NO SLOWING DOWN ON SUNSET BLVD. –

March 29, 2022 – None of that is new. Parents have always been crazy. And kids have been using speed to get better grades for decades. There are New York Times and Time magazine articles from 1937 about college kids using amphetamines to improve their grades. A 1983 episode of Family Ties had Michael J. Fox’s character hopped up for a test. A 1990 episode of Saved by the Bell had Elizabeth Berkley’s character doing the same.

But the pandemic made crazy L.A. parents even crazier. “Parents were not used to being with their kids all the time,” says Leslie Lotano-Saba, vice president of pharmacy solutions at the global management consulting firm AArete. “Kids were staying home without a routine. It was easier to call a pediatrician and say, ‘Joey can’t focus on the computer with remote learning. Can you help?’ ” Adderall is prescribed for ADHD, which was once diagnosed only in the prepubescent. Now adults are discovering they have ADHD. Or occasional ADHD. Or work-at-home ADHD. “If you were normally going to an office in a structured environment and now you’re working from home and have to focus, you’ve got a reason to be taking it,” says Lotano-Saba. And if you’re also dealing with bored kids interrupting your Slack chats and Zoom meetings, you’ve got even more reason to seek a potion to help you focus.

Twenty years ago, it was tough to find a job that was both simultaneously boring and focus-demanding. Professional baseball comes to mind. And those guys took so many “greenies” that clubhouses offered two pots of coffee—a regular one marked “unleaded” and a “leaded” one with amphetamines. But today, even some Los Angeles staffers admit to having popped pills to compete: Fashion writer Merle Ginsberg, who was a judge on the first two seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, went to a psychiatrist to treat her depression. He put her on antidepressants but, to her surprise, also suggested throwing in Adderall.