Juicing the Brain

In this article written by Sherry Baker for the April edition of Discover Magazine, the possibility of drugs being used to "build a better brain" is considered. It is old news that many college students have used nonprescribed Ritalin to assist their studies during stressful exam weeks; the new news is that other professionals are using drugs like Provigil, normally prescribed for patients with sleep disorders, to maintain alertness during their own stressful situations. Is it wrong to use these drugs when they aren't prescribed for you? Is it wrong to consider permitting the use of these drugs to enhance cognitive abilities in people who have no deficiencies that necessitate their use? It seems that this is the equivalent of steroid use in professional athletes. I recall a "Boston Legal" episode in which a student was suing for having been dropped from a prestigious school's acceptance list after she admitted to using these drugs to improve her test scores. It's perfectly analagous to an asterisk next to an athlete's name.