The New Yorker Writes About Drugs, Hipster Harvard Kid
In this week's issue of the New Yorker, staff writer Margaret Talbot penned a lengthy piece about the "underground world of 'neuroenhancing' drugs". (Whether or not the use of cognitive stimulants - especially on college campuses - is "underground" is up for debate; I'd say from my own experience it was hardly hush-hush, but I digress.)
Stories on students using drugs like Adderall and Ritalin have been the yawn-inducing fodder of rags both on and off-campus for years now, and yet none have given the issues at play as much consideration as Talbot has in "Brain Drain."
While the piece does not focus solely on "neuroenhancers" and their use by students, the story opens and ends on a recently graduated Harvard student under the alias of "Alex". According to Talbot, Alex - who is "skinny and bearded...[and who] looked like the lead singer in an indie band" (and yet apparently has not relocated to Brooklyn) - took drugs in college in order to balance his school and extracurricular commitments with an apparently ravishing weekend social life.
More after the jump.
Alex was eager to dispel the notion that students who took Adderall were "academic automatons who are using it in order to be first in their class, or in order to be an obvious admit to law school or the first accepted at a consulting firm." In fact, he said, "it's often people" - mainly guys - "who are looking in some way to compensate for activities that are detrimental to their performance... At the most basic level, they aim to do better than they would have otherwise."
That's good to know. Prescription stimulants are used by all types of Harvard students. They're used by nerds who want to go to a top law school or a consulting firm and they're also used by students who'll settle for slightly inferior ones.
'Everyone is aware of the fact that if you were up at 3 A.M. writing this paper it isn't going to be as good as it could have been. The fact that you were partying all weekend, or spent the last week being high, watching 'Lost' - that's going to take a toll.'
Uh, "Lost" is a great show and all, but doing stimulants during the week to make time to get high and watch it on the weekend sounds incredibly lame.
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April 25th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
please, everyone knows ADD drugs are overprescribed, anyways. it’s also a boring topic.
plus, having time to get high on the weekends is just as important as finishing that paper.
anyways, who watches Lost anyways? that show is batshit insane. 24, the office, top gear, and 30 rock, please.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Wake me when the kids at BYU are popping adderall.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
They already are.
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