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Drugs and study an unfair advantage?

A

aero

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 19, 2010
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154
I was speaking to my friend from the states recently, he is a student over there. He told me he had been scripted Ritalin to help him do study cram sessions etc.

Now my question is; Could this be giving him an unfair advantage over other students?

We in Australia do not get such luxuries, to my knowledge, so are we disadvantaged as a nation?

Maybe Ritalin could of helped more people stay in school, as opposed to people naturally good at learning.

Any thoughts?

Not to exclude non students etc; so lets include reading and or doing some tedious workplace jobs - This is not about abuse of anything just about potential to help.
 
I doubt he was scripted ritalin for the purpose of doing cram sessions. Most likely he got it the normal way; going to the doctor and pretending to have ADD.
 
I don't think it is unfair to use stimulants to help you study at all. Education is a personal endeavour, not a competition, if you think cramming with stimulants improve your chances and you are willing to live with the potential consequences then go for it. You have a responsibility to yourself to do as well as you can, you don't have a responsibility to your peers not to use drugs for study just because they might not be.
 
Crankinit said:
I doubt he was scripted ritalin for the purpose of doing cram sessions. Most likely he got it the normal way; going to the doctor and pretending to have ADD.
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No he really got it from the DR for exams. It's ridiculous.
It's all the rage in the U.S.
 
My psychiatrist told me if I would take my lithium for 3 months and give it a try he'd give me focalin or concerta 52(or is it 58)mg pills just so I could stay awake and be more frocused/do better in school
 
drug_mentor said:
I don't think it is unfair to use stimulants to help you study at all. Education is a personal endeavour, not a competition, if you think cramming with stimulants improve your chances and you are willing to live with the potential consequences then go for it.
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Exactly. This is what separates study from sport: it's not a competition - or at least, it shouldn't be. Unfortunately, in some systems it is :S
 
Oh it's a competition. Some courses have 50 places, if you aren't the top of your class you won't get into the classes you want to study.

I was so poor at University that I finished a 5 year course and only owned one textbook. I hand wrote all my assignments as I did not own a computer. You could argue that my classmates had an unfair advantage given that they had access to books that I didn't. Life isn't fair and it's a dog eat dog world but I hardly feel that having access to stims makes a person smarter. Studies have shown that students who study using drugs or alcohol actually do better only when you sit the exams while under the influence of those same drugs.
 
yeh but they still do better right. I read some studies that showed students adminstered with stimulant X did better than students without stimulant X.

I think it's unfair. But hey i'll take every +% I can get. Study is the most important competition of them all.
 
I don't think it gives you unfair advantage. they don't make you smarter, but just let you concentrate for extended periods of time. You wouldn't want to take them regularly to study. I've used them to study for statistics exams (i hate stats) and to help me finish my thesis in its final stages.

however, the best thing to do is to study regularly and consistently. if you did this you wouldn't need to cram, and by implications shouldn't need to stimulants to keep you concentrating for ages.

I say this when I have left four assignments to the last minute and really should be doing them now. LOL
 
^ haha it gets like that doesn't it. I have 2 huge assignments due in a week I have had a semester to get started on and have continually put off, silly me. :( Lucky I have just a little emergency MDPV for if I need to pull an all nighter or two. ;)
 
Generally speaking I dont think its an unfair advantage. But a doctor scripting ritalin to a student just for exams is a bit lucrative.

I take it for all study occassions/classes/exams and feel that it doesnt make me smarter at all, simply allows for me to tap more of my natural potential.

Then again, I "probably" have adhd, who's to say? I cant remember how much if any bullshit I spilled to the psychaitrist but he seemed to think that a truckload of stims was adequate treatment.

I'm also a chronic cannabis user, which probably accounts for a fair chunk of my symptoms which I overcome with ritalin.

Meh, whatever I say. Works for me =) But I wouldnt trust 99% of the world to be responisble with such a prescription, train wrecks galore.
 
Like psytaco said - stims keep you awake, not make you smarter. if anything they diminish more braincells than you ordinarily would lose.
 
It isn't that they make you smarter, it's that they give you the focus to study much longer than most people would normally manage, and the energy to keep it up all night.
 
Crankinit said:
It isn't that they make you smarter, it's that they give you the focus to study much longer than most people would normally manage, and the energy to keep it up all night.
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Bang on it. Thats the "unfair' advantage.

If i can study for 3 hours normally, but on stims i can study for 6 hours, Then I am "unfairly" advantaged over a non stim user.

Intelligence remains at a baseline, concentration and length of study increase.
 
drug_mentor said:
I don't think it is unfair to use stimulants to help you study at all. Education is a personal endeavour, not a competition, if you think cramming with stimulants improve your chances and you are willing to live with the potential consequences then go for it. You have a responsibility to yourself to do as well as you can, you don't have a responsibility to your peers not to use drugs for study just because they might not be.
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I'm sorry but I whole heartadly disagree with you, and normally I tend to side with you D_M

As Busty St Claire said, It is a competition when there are only so many jobs out there and not all of us can have the same resources as one an other. But most of the time you can manage, My internets been playing up lately so I have to rely on books instead of the internet for my studies. But if other people are taking things to make them focus harder and longer it hardly seems fair.


I've also though about it before that Business's want to hire the people who do the best through their course, but if those people were using stims through uni then when they get into the job they will be able to focus less then the other people who weren't using the stims.

I see you're argument, but I disagree.
 
^ Thats cool man, everyone is entitled to an opinion and yours doesn't come across as uninformed. ;)

The reason I disagree with you is because there are many things one can do to put themselves in a position of advantage over another in a study situation. Whether that be better use of ones time in the first place, greater investment in things in which to assist your study, sacrificing any form of social life to get extra study hours in, etc. that shit ALL factors in to how well an individual does.

None of that is called into question and some of them are a lot less fair than stimulants. For example a rich kid will have better resources to assit them in their education, they will also probably have to work less hours to pay the bills (maybe none if mum and dad are REAL generous) and therefore have more time to commit to study. I am not rich, I cannot wake up tommorrow and decide to be rich.

Atleast anyone has the choice to use stimulants, assuming they can get them but honestly talking about the younger demographic likely to be in study where stimulants are overprescribed and illicit stimulant use is rife this shouldn't be an issue for most. It IS an advantage but when you really think about it, its an option everybody has where a lot of other advantages you can't say that much.

Also I would like to point out, people inclined to use stimulants to "cram study" already most likely have poor study habits if they need to cram like that, and have put themselves in a position of disadvantage in the first place in regards to poor time management and stimulants don't always negate this disadvantage completely.
 
^ I think they call that contextual recall or some shit in psychology? They actually taught us that in high school which I thought was kind of amusing. Its like they say in 'How High' - "If we study high and take the tests high, we will get HIGH scores!" Haha
 
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