Narcotics investigators for the Starkville Police Department want students to know the consequences, both legal and medical, of the abuse of prescription drugs for attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder.
Starkville’s narcotics officers will be looking for signs of illegal drug use and will deal with the illegal actions as they would the use of any other illegal drug, said Maurice Johnson, SPD narcotics investigator.
“We’re going to start looking in to it, and if there are students out there distributing prescription drugs we will arrest, charge and prosecute them,” Johnson said.
Depending on the circumstance surrounding the arrest, students involved in illegal drugs would have to go through an educational sanction in which they appear before a judicial board and may have to go though a series of on-campus classes dealing with their offense, said Dean of Students Michael White.
“The circumstances dictate the sanction applied,” White said, “Now, selling on campus would be treated a bit more strictly than a simple possession. It would most likely result in suspension from the university. Suspension involves the withdrawing of classes and a loss of a semester’s worth of class credit and tuition.”
Possession of a controlled substance such as Adderall or Ritalin without a prescription for the drugs is a crime and Johnson said being involved in the transfer of these drugs is a felony.
“Being in possession of Adderall without a prescription is a misdemeanor unless you have over 100 pills-then it is a felony,” Johnson said. “Being involved in the transfer of or sale of a controlled substance such as Adderall or Ritalin is a felony.”
A six-month driver’s license suspension is added to any arrest and conviction involving a controlled substance. Conviction of a misdemeanor can bring up to a $1,000 fine and or six months of prison time. Conviction of a felony drug charge can bring up to a $1 million fine and as much as 30 years in prison, Johnson said.
MSU police usually deal with on-campus violations. They have the full power of arrest, but White said the relationship between the campus and the city police departments is a good one.
“There is cooperation between our police department and the Starkville government and police department,” White said.
Dangers always exist when taking prescription drugs that were prescribed for somebody else, said senior pharmacist Shannon Street.
While the dangers of taking Ritalin or Adderall without prescription vary, known side effects range from stomach pain to elevated blood pressure, stroke or heart attack, Street said.
“If they do not need Ritalin or Adderall, then the drug could act as an upper,” Street said.
The sources of prescription drugs are, logically, the people who have prescriptions for the drugs, Johnson said.
“Students can get a month’s prescription for Adderall, and if they do not take all of the pills, then they have some left over and they can give these away or sell them to other students,” Johnson said, “We are trying to find the people who are getting the drugs and distributing them to others.”
This does not mean that any student getting prescription drugs can be considered a suspect and questioned Johnson said.
“We are not going to confront or approach all students with prescriptions because it is legal to have a prescription for a controlled substance,” Johnson said.
Most students with prescriptions for controlled substances take their medicine and do not distribute it to other students, Dean White said.
“I know that we have a number of students with prescriptions for Adderall or Ritalin, and I assume that they know the penalties of illegal actions and do not distribute their drugs but keep them and use them as prescribed,” White said.