A panel's warning has raised concerns about heart problems and even sudden death due to use of stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall.
A Food and Drug Administration panel indicated last month that heart problems may stem from use of the drugs, which some college students use for recreational purposes and to focus more effectively.
According to last year's Alcohol and Other Drug Survey, administered by the Office of Health Education, 9 percent of Penn students said that they had used prescription medications -- including stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall --recreationally at least one to two times per semester during the 2004-2005 school year.
The panel recommended that stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, which are routinely prescribed to treat conditions that make concentration difficult, be labeled with warnings about possible effects on the heart.
The recommendation followed reports of serious heart-related problems as well as stroke and sudden death among stimulant users in recent years.
According to Psychiatry professor Anthony Rostain, who is head of Penn's Adult ADHD Treatment and Research Program, stimulants are dangerous for anyone with certain existing heart problems, so doctors who prescribe the drugs first make sure that patients do not have any cardiac abnormalities.
But when students get the drug without first consulting a doctor, they run the risk of the drug aggravating undiagnosed heart problems.
And the federal organization is not alone in making stimulant-misuse education a priority.
Increasingly, several Penn drug-education groups are giving stimulants the same kind of attention that other drugs usually receive.
The Alcohol and Other Drug Survey, given annually, asked students specifically about recreational stimulant use for the first time in 2006.
The survey -- which was completed on March 1 -- got about 6,000 responses from undergraduate and graduate students. Statistics, however, may not be available for several months, according to Office of Alcohol Policy Initiatives Program Evaluator Tamarah Smith-Dyer.
She said that the survey inquired about stimulants this year because "there's been a lot of chatter" about students misusing the drugs, especially to "excel in school."
The student-run Drug and Alcohol Resource Team -- which runs mandatory workshops for fraternity and sorority pledges -- also focused more heavily on stimulant misuse this year.
According to DART Vice President and College junior Josh Matz, the group ran 16 workshops, each of which included a trivia game about drugs, alcohol and Penn's drug policy.
The game asked pledges questions about stimulants for the first time this year, due to the group's concern that its focus on alcohol was too narrow.
In an e-mail statement, Matz said that DART felt "a compelling need" to educate students about stimulant misuse on campus in the same way it teaches about alcohol, cocaine and other drugs.
Rostain estimated that one in three Penn students has at some point taken a stimulant without a prescription.
Rostain said that although there is no conclusive data, researchers suspect there is greater stimulant misuse at schools like Penn where the pressure to succeed is higher and students feel they must "get an edge."
Rostain said that he did not think that warning labels on stimulants about the effects on the heart would deter students from misusing them, but they might make doctors more wary when prescribing them.
Nevertheless, "if you take [a stimulant] as prescribed and there's nothing wrong with your heart, [it] is basically a safe medication," Rostain said.
