smart drugs

articles o the safety, effectiveness, and ethics surrounding smart drugs designed to improve attention, awakeness and alertness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/06/students-drugs-modafinil-ritalin

"Modafinil is one of the new neuroenhancing "smart drugs" now being taken by growing numbers of students. It was originally developed for the treatment of narcolepsy, but is now used by students to combat fatigue. Another popular choice is Ritalin, originally designed as a treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Both increase levels of dopamine levels in the brain – and the alertness and wakefulness of those taking them.

So popular have these drugs become that last month Barbara Sahakian, professor of clinical neuropsychology at Cambridge University's psychiatry department, warned that their use has "enormous implications" and that universities must act on them – even mentioning dope testing as one possibility. But this is not happening. "What universities are doing about [them] is nothing," she says.

Students believe the drugs enable them to do more work. "I take them when I need to get through lectures and I have a terrible hangover," says Price.

At the other extreme, Lucy Makepeace, a postgraduate student at Cambridge, uses them less from a lack of diligence than an excess of it. Extremely hard working, she takes modafinil once or twice a week. "With study, work and sport I have a very full timetable," she says. "I want to do everything, but I don't want to do any of it at a mediocre level. Taking modafinil helps me to do it all."

"I don't think this is cheating. I read a nice analogy, which said that people with a bad memory are no different to people who have bad eyesight. You let people with bad eyesight have glasses; why not let people with a bad memory have these pills?"

More on the times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article1780141.ece