College students are using drugs.

Astonished? You should be. Academic doping - the usage of cognitive enhancing drugs - is compounding on college campuses, and preventative methods are unrealistic, suggests a study in the October edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics.

And according to the account of a recent Northwestern graduate, using them can feel necessary.

Healthy students use drugs prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder, dementia, and schizophrenia for the purpose of enhanced focus, mental clarity, and improved memory retention. This practice, known as nootropics, is spurring ethical and logistical questions: Is nootropic usage unfair to other students? Can it be curtailed?

The graduate, who requested anonymity, said that questions of ethics don't accurately represent her experience with Adderall, a psycho-stimulant frequently prescribed for ADD - in this case, to her roommate, who was “happy to share when asked.”

“How about what drives people to Adderall?” she asked. “It isn't just wild students who want to cut corners and party. I was an A student, and constantly pressured to do more and more for my law school resume. I just ran out of energy, and then the anxiety of being unproductive felt overwhelming.”

Vince Cakic, author of the study and psychologist at the University of Sydney, suggested that this is a common phenomenon in college culture.

The urge to gain advantage over competitors is inevitable in “a world where we must be bigger, better and faster...and to realize one’s highest potential demands that one be unfettered by their own biological limitations,” and nootropics are readily available, he pointed out.

Cakic sees the blasé dismissal of nootropics as singularly unfair as unrealistic. “To be sure, nootropics would probably make an already uneven playing field more unfair, and one that is likely only to favour the wealthy who can afford to purchase them,” he wrote. “However, using unequal distribution to justify the prohibition of nootropics is akin to prohibiting private tuition...”

In the Orwellian event that schools enacted urine tests prior to major examinations, Cakic said, there's no reason to think that the results won't parallel the dilemma in professional sports: masking agents will remain ahead of the testing curve, and new undetectable drugs will be developed.

And thus the ethical hand-wringing is putting the horse before the carriage. A better question may be how to make the usage of these drugs safer, Cakic said, or focus on nootropic development which primarily benefit those who have serious cognitive deficits, such as the narcolepsy drug Provigil, which is shown in studies to provide the greatest improvements in cognitive performance in those with lower IQs.

The former student agreed that the issue is misperceived. “It's been made out to be a huge breach of academic principles by the individual student,” she said, “but ethics are secondary to achievement.”

In the spirit of full disclosure, the creation of this very article was enhanced with a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. Would the prose have been as rich and rugged without that synapse-sparking dash of caffeine? Does this qualify as a breach in journalistic ethics? Maybe. But these are my principles. And if you don't like them, well, I have others.