Doping in academia

Man, I love the ADD/ADHD-drug-abusing on campus story (NYT login required). I've been following it for a couple of years now.

"...An era of doping may be looming in academia, and it has ignited a debate about policy and ethics that in some ways echoes the national controversy over performance enhancement accusations against elite athletes like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens," intones Benedict Carey, in a Week in Review story published this past weekend.

It has also ignited a desire, among older elite intellectuals like myself, to get our hands on some of these prescription drugs -- like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness. They sound amazing.

Joshua Foer wrote about his "romance with ADD meds" for Slate in 2005. Excerpt:

The first hour or so of being on Adderall is mildly euphoric. The feeling wears off quickly, giving way to a calming sensation, like a nicotine buzz, that lasts for several hours. When I tried writing on the drug, it was like I had a choir of angels sitting on my shoulders. I became almost mechanical in my ability to pump out sentences. The part of my brain that makes me curious about whether I have new e-mails in my inbox apparently shut down. Normally, I can only stare at my computer screen for about 20 minutes at a time. On Adderall, I was able to work in hourlong chunks. I didn't feel like I was becoming smarter or even like I was thinking more clearly. I just felt more directed, less distracted by rogue thoughts, less day-dreamy. I felt like I was clearing away underbrush that had been obscuring my true capabilities.

The New York Times also published a story about ADHD-drug abuse on college campuses, back in 2005. Excerpt:

Angela, who asked that her last name not be published for fear of alarming her family and angering university officials, popped a 30-milligram tablet of Adderall into her mouth, washed it down with coffee and headed back to the library for another night of cramming. The next morning, she sailed through the exam confidently and scored an A. "I don't think I could keep a 3.9 average without this stuff," she said afterward.

In September of last year, Randy Cohen, the New York Times Magazine's ethicist, responded to a reader's question about the ethics of taking Adderall in order to ace the LSATs. Excerpt:

Performance-enhancing drugs might give their users an unfair advantage over their unpilled peers. But academe does not exist on a level playing field; deans, test givers and students themselves routinely accept greater inequities. Few who attend magnificent universities see this as an unethical edge over students at more modest colleges. Some children have parents who are lawyers, but nobody forbids these parents from helping their kids learn. And for good or ill, most students have easy, albeit illegal, access to Adderall.

Some foes of these drugs call them academic steroids, arguing that, as on the football field, those who do not take them and bear the attendant health risks cannot compete with those who do. But no individual’s renouncing Adderall can have any effect on his fellow students. It is only those who run a college or administer these tests (or run the N.F.L.) who can make meaningful reforms. Absent such an effort, popping brain pills may be unwise, unsafe and illegal, but it is not unethical.

Molly Young, a senior at an unnamed Ivy League university, wrote about her adventures with Adderall for n+1's website back in January. Excerpt:

Of course, I could have studied in college without Adderall, just like I did in high school -- I just couldn't have studied with such ecstasy. Theoretical texts, in particular, were transformed into exercises as conquerable as a Tuesday crossword. I could work out in the gym with a Xeroxed packet of Gayatri Spivak perched on the elliptical machine in front of me, reading and burning calories at the same time. The efficacy of the multitasking was exhilarating. On Adderall, the densest writing became penetrable. I had an illusion of mastery, at least, that lasted long enough to write the necessary papers and presentations. I could never remember what I had written the next day, but I justified this forgetfulness as an accelerated version of what would happen anyway after I graduated.

Man! We didn't even have espresso or Red Bull at my college, back in the mid-1980s; over-the-counter No-Doz was the drug of choice, and it really wasn't very helpful. Now, I realize that taking these drugs is unwise; all of the articles I link to in this post say so, eventually. But damn, they sound attractive. Don't they?

UPDATE: Grad student Scott Eric Kaufman, of the intellectual blog Acephalous, joked today -- in his best Roger Clemens-ese -- that he'd testified before Congress about "the rumors that I've been using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in order to complete my dissertation." His testimony:

My relationship with myself is close enough to know that if I would have known that I had done the Adderall, which I now know that I didn't know that I did, and if I was knowingly knowing that I had taken the Adderall, I would have talked to myself about the subject. I'd have come to me to ask me whether I knew or would know the effects of it.

Good stuff!