As college students, we’ve all been there before. It’s eleven at night and you have hours to go on your paper that’s due tomorrow; you’re tired, unfocused and want nothing more than to go to sleep. The library seems more a dank, dust-ridden dungeon than a place of higher learning and every time you read a sentence you see your bed rather than words.

Many people will quit at this point and go home, leaving the work until they have to grab a hot copy of their paper out of the printer and sprint to class, laying their paper on top of all the other students’. Others will grab a cup of coffee or tea and push through those last hours.

Others take Adderall. Adderall is a prescription drug used to curb symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). When a person without ADHD uses this amphetamine-based drug it produces greater quantities dopamine in the brain, allowing the user to concentrate intensely for longer than normal periods of time.

The number of college students using Adderall and other stimulants (Provigil and Modafinil have similar effects) is growing exponentially, according to recent studies released in the Journal of the American Medical Association and Nature.

A recent article in The New Yorker followed students and their stimulant use at high pressure East Coast schools like Harvard. Many of these students reportedly used Adderall every day or a few times a week.

Is this trend present at Cal Poly? You’d better believe it. Poly is a competitive, high-pressure school and I think it’s safe to say that procrastination is universal. Many people I know have used the drug to get their papers done, make it through finals or get a high grade on mid-term.

Many of these students at Poly and across the country tout the drugs as “smart pills” or “neuroenhancers”. The claims range from improved concentration to rises in IQ. Is this fair? Is this good for you? Is this true?

These questions are fueling debate not only among college students, but professors and medical professionals as well. The long-term effects of such drugs are unknown and even the short-term effects are hazy. Many of these drugs show addiction patterns similar to traditional stimulants, like cocaine.

One side of the argument is, if you can concentrate harder for longer and produce better work more often, why not do it? People on this side compare the drug to drinking coffee or smoking tobacco.

The other side says that this gives an unfair advantage to people on the drug. They don’t want to take the drug because of possible side effects and would rather do work naturally. They also worry that expectations in our already fast-paced will be raised unreasonably high. Along these lines, they say that it is possible to all that you need to do as long as you don’t procrastinate.

Many stimulant users do so because they have other activities that they like to do as well like dancing, playing music, watching television or just socializing. This allows more time in their day to do so.

Is this necessary? Is this the future? It’s hard to say. These drugs are easily available and make billions of dollars for drug companies, so the chance of them being taken off the market is low. They’ll be here for a long time to come, we’ll just have to watch carefully and see what happens.