Here's the latest panic about drugs. Students are, apparently, taking drugs to give them an academic edge. Some are taking Ritalin, the medicine more typically used to treat ADHD – it seems to make them feel sharper on exam day, and might improve concentration and short-term memory. So academics are worried that these dopers might have an advantage unavailable to people who can't, or won't, get hold of the drugs. In a survey, as many as 10% say they've done it. Oh dear, people are saying. Test them! Root them out!
But should we really worry about drugs enhancing academic performance? For centuries, people have got it into their heads that taking drugs might improve one's mental state. Three hundred years ago, it was thought that smoking opium fired the imagination, and might have figured in some of Coleridge's best poetry. Sure, it makes you feel like a poet. But it doesn't, in my experience, make you write like one. You stare at things, such as bricks or drainpipes, and think new thoughts about them. But I don't think drugs or drink can make you write good poetry; it's just that artist-types tend to drink and get high, because being an artist is so frustrating.
In the 19th century, all sorts of people, including Sigmund Freud, believed that cocaine gave the mind special powers. And now, of course, everybody knows that it just makes the mind think it has special powers, while actually turning it, as Robert de Niro tells the coke-snorting Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, into a "mush".
In the 1990s, in his book Listening to Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Kramer described his moral qualms about prescribing this new drug. Might it be giving certain patients an unfair advantage? Two decades on, I think we all know the answer to that question. Prozac helps you to hide from your problems. But will it solve them? I think not.
The thing about drugs is that they alter your mind. They give your brain chemistry a kick. But this is hardly going to help you in the dreary world of exams and coursework. Drugs might appear to have a brief upside – but anyone who's ever taken them knows that, mostly, they have a worse downside. That's because your brain is designed to work on its own – it produces tiny amounts of different chemicals, in response to a complex world, in order to help you live in that world. It's like a tiny orchestra, spritzing out bits of dopamine here and serotonin there, learning as it goes. Imagine a Mozart concerto. Now imagine the Sex Pistols. That's what happens when you take drugs.
It's what happens every time you take a drag from a cigarette. You get a blast of brain chemicals. It's also why taking drugs can be horribly addictive. With the Sex Pistols on stage, the Mozart orchestra packs up and goes home. The subtlety and complexity of your brain diminishes.
When you take drugs, your brain fights back. Take too many painkillers, and you eventually become more sensitive to pain; take too much ecstasy, or anti-depressants, and you'll be more susceptible to misery. Drink coffee all the time and you'll be tired. Take speed and you'll slow down. Smoke weed and you'll get the giggles, but smoke weed all the time and you'll never feel like laughing.
What was it these students were taking? Ah yes – Ritalin. The seasoned addiction writer Elizabeth Wurtzel, having weaned herself off cocaine, spent some time in the thrall of Ritalin. In her brilliant book More, Now, Again she says about Ritalin that she crushes it up and snorts it.
Might Ritalin be an unfair advantage? Possibly, if conditions were perfect, on a good day. But not consistently. Put it this way: if I had to take a competitive exam, and I had the choice, I would want the other guys to be on Ritalin. If you really want your mind to be sharp, have three good nights' sleep in a row, followed by a brisk walk. Then take the exam. That really would be an unfair advantage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/07/ritalin-exams-performance-enhancing-drug
But should we really worry about drugs enhancing academic performance? For centuries, people have got it into their heads that taking drugs might improve one's mental state. Three hundred years ago, it was thought that smoking opium fired the imagination, and might have figured in some of Coleridge's best poetry. Sure, it makes you feel like a poet. But it doesn't, in my experience, make you write like one. You stare at things, such as bricks or drainpipes, and think new thoughts about them. But I don't think drugs or drink can make you write good poetry; it's just that artist-types tend to drink and get high, because being an artist is so frustrating.
In the 19th century, all sorts of people, including Sigmund Freud, believed that cocaine gave the mind special powers. And now, of course, everybody knows that it just makes the mind think it has special powers, while actually turning it, as Robert de Niro tells the coke-snorting Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, into a "mush".
In the 1990s, in his book Listening to Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Kramer described his moral qualms about prescribing this new drug. Might it be giving certain patients an unfair advantage? Two decades on, I think we all know the answer to that question. Prozac helps you to hide from your problems. But will it solve them? I think not.
The thing about drugs is that they alter your mind. They give your brain chemistry a kick. But this is hardly going to help you in the dreary world of exams and coursework. Drugs might appear to have a brief upside – but anyone who's ever taken them knows that, mostly, they have a worse downside. That's because your brain is designed to work on its own – it produces tiny amounts of different chemicals, in response to a complex world, in order to help you live in that world. It's like a tiny orchestra, spritzing out bits of dopamine here and serotonin there, learning as it goes. Imagine a Mozart concerto. Now imagine the Sex Pistols. That's what happens when you take drugs.
It's what happens every time you take a drag from a cigarette. You get a blast of brain chemicals. It's also why taking drugs can be horribly addictive. With the Sex Pistols on stage, the Mozart orchestra packs up and goes home. The subtlety and complexity of your brain diminishes.
When you take drugs, your brain fights back. Take too many painkillers, and you eventually become more sensitive to pain; take too much ecstasy, or anti-depressants, and you'll be more susceptible to misery. Drink coffee all the time and you'll be tired. Take speed and you'll slow down. Smoke weed and you'll get the giggles, but smoke weed all the time and you'll never feel like laughing.
What was it these students were taking? Ah yes – Ritalin. The seasoned addiction writer Elizabeth Wurtzel, having weaned herself off cocaine, spent some time in the thrall of Ritalin. In her brilliant book More, Now, Again she says about Ritalin that she crushes it up and snorts it.
Might Ritalin be an unfair advantage? Possibly, if conditions were perfect, on a good day. But not consistently. Put it this way: if I had to take a competitive exam, and I had the choice, I would want the other guys to be on Ritalin. If you really want your mind to be sharp, have three good nights' sleep in a row, followed by a brisk walk. Then take the exam. That really would be an unfair advantage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/07/ritalin-exams-performance-enhancing-drug
