Do pro sports leagues have a new drug problem?

Because professional sports leagues have made allowances for those who are deemed to be in need of Adderall, and the privacy concerns tied to medical issues, there is a lot of uncertainty about how to react to what seems to be growing use of the drug in some sports.

In Major League Baseball, the percentage of players among 40-man rosters who were granted therapeutic use exemptions skyrocketed from 28 in 2006 to 103 in 2007, the year after MLB banned amphetamines like Adderall. That number has remained about the same since. In 2011 it was 105.

So roughly 9% of major league players are granted exemptions for drugs treating them for ADHD. By comparison, a study commissioned by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2006 found that 4.4% of adults ages 14 to 44 in the U.S. experienced symptoms of ADHD.

"To have doubled the population prevalence of a disorder is staggering," says University of Wisconsin psychiatrist Eric Heiligenstein. "Obviously, that's weird."

Ben Vitiello, a research psychiatrist with the NIMH, says that 4.4% figure cited in the 2006 study is probably still accurate, but says it's simplistic to claim baseball's ADHD prevalence is double the general population, because baseball's numbers reflect only men who have a greater prevalence of ADHD than women.

Still, Vitiello looks at the 9% prevalence in Major League Baseball and says, "That's a fishy number."

MLB's Rob Manfred, executive vice president for labor relations and human resources, says the percentage differences are understandable.

"Our population doesn't look like the nation," he says. "We are younger. We are higher income, and there's no question attention is a key part of what these athletes do. So the idea that we would have a higher incidence rate than the general rate is really not that surprising."

The NFL does not release details on how many players hold therapeutic exemptions, but Birch says, "I can easily say that it's less than the percentages you would talk about on a national average with respect to Adderall."

The 'Adderall excuse'

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Do pro sports leagues have a new drug problem?