Article Summary

Article Review

Smart Drugs, or more precisely, cognitive enhancers, include a variety of controlled substances, available - if you insist on being legal about it - only by prescription. They include stimulants such as dextroamphetamine (sold as Dexedrine and Adderall) and methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta) for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). By mimicking the brain neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine, stimulants leave you utterly consumed with the task at hand until mission accomplished. Then you're fired up to tackle something else, anything else, from organizing your sock drawer to grooming your cat.

Smart Drugs also include a class known as eugeroics, meaning "good arousal" - which, for a worker bee like me, means the sort of high one gets when the mind is so crystal clear that one is able to dash off half a dozen lucid memos to the boss before 8:30 a.m. The eugeroics modafinil and armodafinil (sold as Provigil and Nuvigil) treat narcolepsy and "excessive sleepiness" (ES) due to shift work and sleep apnea. But prescribed off-label, they've also been found effective for ES due to overbearing superiors, perfectionist tendencies, and not enough hours in the day. They work by inhibiting the brain chemicals that cause fatigue, which, in turn, energizes the brain circuits. The outcome is alertness and, according to recent studies, focus and short-term-memory enhancement. Some say they move you from one challenge to the next with more ease than caffeine - without the jitters.

According to a reader survey conducted by the scientific journal Nature, one in five respondents has used prescription cognitive enhancers for nonmedical purposes - that's 50 percent more than those who reported taking these drugs for their intended use! When asked whether these practices should be allowed, 86 percent of the 1400 surveyed answered yes. Apparently, while the chattering classes tsk-tsked the doping habits of pro athletes, those within their own circles - writers, designers, scientists, scholars - have been juicing up themselves, or secretly wishing they could.

In doing my own survey, the author was introduced to the in-house counsel of a private equity firm. He works 14- to 20-hour days and juggles 20 projects simultaneously. Tired of working late without getting the work done by quitting time, he contacted a psychopharmacologist, who prescribed the stimulant Focalin. Now, he says, "the author can sit and draft an agreement for the next few hours and never look up, not even to check e-mail."

Drugs often fuel ...