ILLICIT PRESCRIPTION DRUGS SPREAD ON CAMPUS

HARTFORD, March 23 -- Unlike the typical array of drugs available to
college students looking to get high, the only thing illegal about those
that killed Josh Doroff, a Trinity College senior, last week was that Mr.
Doroff got them without a prescription.

The lethal combination he took -- a cocktail of Xanax, Valium, butalbital
and sleeping pills, among other drugs -- may have been extreme, but the
abuse of prescription drugs is an increasingly common form of drug abuse
for college and high school students across the country, according to drug
experts around the country and dozens of students interviewed at eight
universities in the Northeast this week.

Whether it is stimulants like Ritalin, Aderol and Dexedrine; painkillers
like Percocet, Percodan and Vicodin; migraine pills like butalbital; nerve
relaxers like Xanax and Valium; or even powerful antipsychotic agents like
Thorazine, the nation's growing list of prescribed drugs is finding its way
out of medicine cabinets and onto college campuses at a rate that is
troubling to many doctors and epidemiologists.

Most college students, of course, do not take prescription drugs illegally.
But nearly all students interviewed said illicit prescription drugs were
available on campus. Students said they, or people they know, typically
took them to better concentrate on homework or exams, to stay awake during
long nights of drinking or, by mixing them with other drugs, to find a
yet-undiscovered high.

"Even if it feels bad, it's just that it's something that feels different,"
said Peter LaBier, an art major at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
"There's just this urge with kids my age to derange your senses."

One preliminary study last year on the illicit use of Ritalin, conducted by
psychiatrists at the University of Wisconsin, found that a fifth of college
students interviewed had taken the drug at least once, and that many had
tried any number of other prescription drugs like Dexedrine, a stimulant.

"We had reports of students walking about the library asking, 'Does anybody
have any Dexedrine I can borrow tonight?' " said Dr. Eric Heiligenstein,
the psychiatrist who led the study.

Where students in previous eras relied on over-the-counter stimulants like
Vivarin, No-Doz or plain old coffee, more of today's students favor
spending as little as $2 to swallow, snort or inject prescription drugs to
study, stay awake or just feel good.

"A lot of people take Ritalin to study," said a female student at Vassar
who, like many students interviewed for this article, refused to give her
name. "It makes you feel smart. And I think good thoughts when I use it."

Mike Ferraro, a senior English major at Rutgers University in New
Brunswick, N.J., said he knew many students who got prescription drugs
illegally. "Once you get bored with drug X," he said, "you can try
something new."

As reports grow of on-campus mixing and matching of prescription drugs, and
as more students like Mr. Doroff, from Harrison N.Y., die as a result,
school officials are struggling to learn how students are acquiring and
using these drugs.

"There's a lot of talk about it in the air now," said Dr. Marvin Geller, a
psychologist at McCosh Health Center at Princeton University. The increase
in the illicit use of Ritalin and Aderol, experts believe, corresponds to
the huge increase in recent years in the amounts of these drugs prescribed
by doctors to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders.

"Certainly for Ritalin and Aderol, just the sheer availability of these
drugs makes them a temptation," said Dr. Tom Clark, an epidemiologist at
Health and Addictions Research Inc., a nonprofit organization in Boston.
Among young people, he said, "there seems to be more indiscriminate pill
popping."

Evidence of the increase in illegal use of Ritalin among students, though
still mostly anecdotal, parallels a more than eightfold increase in the
amount of methylphenidate, the drug's active ingredient, manufactured
between 1990 and this year, according to data from the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration. Oxycodon, the active agent in Percocet and its
cousin, Percodan, two painkillers popular among students, is 10 times as
plentiful as in 1990, D.E.A. data shows.

Though Ritalin was the most popular prescription drug on Vassar's campus,
Mr. LaBier, 19, said he had heard of students taking potent drugs like
Thorazine, a powerful antipsychotic that doctors say makes most people feel
terrible.

Near Columbia University's campus, a 21-year-old student called Ritalin
pills "the poor man's cocaine" that when swallowed or crushed and snorted,
helped his friends either study or stay awake during long nights of drinking.

"I know a lot of people that do it all the time," said the man, a Columbia
senior. "I saw my friends crush up 10 pills of Ritalin and snort it. It's
rampant here."

At New York University in Lower Manhattan, Ritalin and Aderol are as common
as marijuana, some students said. "Ritalin makes repetitive, boring tasks
like cleaning your room seem fun," said Josh Koenig, a 20-year-old drama
major. "I equate it in my mind with a really strong cup of coffee."

Katherine Plyshevsky, 21, a junior from New Milford, N.J., majoring in
marketing at N.Y.U., said she used Ritalin obtained from a friend with
attention deficit disorder to get through her midterms. "It was actually
fun to do the work," she said.

Princeton students interviewed this week said Percocet was popular,
especially in combination with marijuana. "You sprinkle it on your weed and
smoke it," a Princeton senior said. "Almost everyone I know has tried it
once or twice."

At Yale University in New Haven, Conn., several students interviewed on
Wednesday described Ritalin as somewhat passe, more the province of their
prep school days than of college.

"People here who didn't go to prep school think it's like cocaine or
something," said an 18-year-old Yale freshman who uses Ritalin illegally.
During exam week, another student said, the demand for Ritalin increases
and 20-milligram pills sell for $5.

Several students interviewed attributed the abundance of Ritalin on their
campuses to its overprescription by doctors to treat students, many of whom
have taken the drug since childhood.

"It seems like an awful lot of people I know have been diagnosed with
A.D.D. and have been prescribed either Ritalin or Aderol," Mr. Koenig, the
N.Y.U. drama student, said. "So if they give away a few of their pills,
it's not a big deal."

At Vassar, a student said she often received at-large pleas for Ritalin
sent by other students over the school's e-mail system.

If there is any comfort in the rising illegal use of prescription drugs, it
may be that at the least their users know what they are getting, said .
James Rothenberger, an instructor at the University of Minnesota's School
of Public of Health.

"Would you want someone taking a street drug, or would you rather have them
taking Ritalin that they've stolen from someone's prescription?" he asked
rhetorically in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "If you're stealing
from your little brother or sister, at least you're getting a pure product."

The danger is greatest for students who feel compelled to mix different
drugs, as Mr. Doroff did at Trinity College last week. Police investigators
said he had combined prescription drugs with alcohol and possibly heroin.

"Most of the overdoses are extreme behavior problems," said Dr. Henry
Kranzler, a psychiatrist at the University of Connecticut Health Center in
Farmington. And with prescription drug use, short-term risks -- overdoses,
sexual indiscretions and impaired driving -- are the greatest.

"What these kids don't know about these drugs," Dr. Kranzler said, "is
killing them.