Every college student wishes there was such a drug as “smart pills” that could make the tough classes like Law of Mass Communications as simple watching an episode of “Law and Order.”
While many students would argue and whine that such convenient brain boosters don’t exist, scientists may say otherwise.
According to an informal, voluntary survey released by Britain’s top science journal, 20 percent of 1,427 scientists polled admitted to using prescription drugs to enhance their mental capabilities and improve concentration. Most of the respondents are in the United States.
The prescription drugs in question – Ritalin, Modafinil and beta blockers – act as stimulants, fight fatigue and treat anxiety.
The British journal Nature reported that more than half of the admitted pill-poppers said they used the prescriptions drugs on a daily or weekly basis.
While it’s not the smartest way to sharpen one’s mind, I can understand how these scientists might need a little pick-me-up. The scientific field, after all, is extremely demanding. School alone deprives me of the luxury of eight hours of sleep.
By Thursday, I’m reaching for my own drugs of choice, Red Bull and chocolate.
For others who are bogged down with a heap of work, holding their concentration is no longer their worry. Rather, drooping eyelids suddenly become their saboteur. It’s hard to ignore the temptations of such a quick and easy solution as popping a pill.
As “study aids,” these drugs are no strangers to college campuses, especially around finals. Those who take them can work and maintain their focus on a single task for hours at a time.
For the U.S. National Institute for Drug Abuse, the survey results reveal the obvious issue at hand.
“It alerted us to the fact that scientists, like others, are looking for short cuts,” said Wilson Compton, director of epidemiology and prevention research.
Eureka! The epiphany within the survey is not that scientists, in all of their intelligent glory, are choosing to take drugs to squeeze a little extra juice out of their noggins. It’s because they feel compelled to and justified in doing so.
They know what the side effects of taking these drugs are. Headaches, anxiety and sleeplessness, to name a few.
Abusing prescription pills to increase concentration doesn’t carry the same stigma as say, snorting cocaine to be more alert does. In the United States, prescription pills are so prevalent and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder medications are prescribed so liberally that they become an accepted, though only occasionally mentioned, pocket of drug abuse in mainstream culture.
So what is the most disturbing red flag of this situation? Nature went on to report that a third of the respondents said they would feel pressure to give their children the drugs if other kids at school were taking them as well.
Pressure? Demands from your boss or your professor is one thing, but from your kids? To those scientists, try taking a few more smart pills.
Kendra Fujino is a senior journalism major and a contributing writer for the Daily Forty-Niner.
