Increased numbers of students across the UK are turning to potentially brain-boosting drugs during exam time, a report in the Journal of Medical Ethics has suggested.
It seems that growing pressures upon young people to succeed within today’s competitive working climate have led to a rise in the use of normally prescribed medicines such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and rivastigmine (Exelon).
Students across British University campuses are turning to these medicines in order to improve their academic performance.
The drugs, normally prescribed to sufferers of ADHD and Alzheimer’s, are known to have influences upon the performance of a student’s creativity, alertness, attention and memory.
The report, written by Vince Cakic from the University of Sydney, suggests that the situation will be hard for universities to combat and that the attraction to purchase ‘smartness in a bottle’ means that the number of students using the drugs will only grow over the next few years.
Indeed, the report predicts that although ‘smart’ drugs at the moment are only proven to increase actual brain power by a small amount,’it appears likely that more effective compounds will be developed in the future and that their off-label use will increase’.
Inevitable questions as to whether the use of this type of drug constitutes cheating have been posed to universities during recent exam periods. However, it is difficult to monitor any differences between students using the drugs and those who are not without medical testing. Paul Cooper from the University of Leicester argues that “As a society we need to ask whether we are happy about people who have no impairments using these drugs to enhance their exam performance – we don’t allow it in sport, so why at university?
“Should we regard these drugs as a pharmaceutical version of the pocket calculator – something that students now rely on in exams as a matter of course? This is a debate that needs to happen.”
Cardiff University advises students who feel under pressure to make use of the university counselling services or to see their GP rather than resorting to this type of drug.
