About
Smarter Smart Drugs is a harm reduction resource aimed at university students, providing evidence-based information to enable people to make informed decisions around using smart drugs.
The information included in this resource does not replace medical advice. We do not accept responsibility for any decisions you make around taking smart drugs after using this resource.
Take Home Messages
- The safest way to enhance cognition is through lifestyle measures such as regular exercise, getting a healthy diet, enough sleep, and avoiding alcohol and recreational drugs.
- Although they are prescription medications and not street drugs, there are still legal and health implications for healthy individuals using them without a prescription, and to those with a prescription if they are found to be selling their medication.
- Safety evidence for smart drugs in healthy populations is limited as most studies investigate these medications in the context of them being used in the clinical setting for those with medical conditions, and so findings will not be applicable to healthy individuals using them for the purpose of cognitive enhancement.
- High-quality reviews have found that the benefit of cognitive enhancers in healthy individuals is perhaps more limited than users would like to think – overall, user expectations exceed their actual effects, and can perhaps contribute to users being overconfident as opposed to enhanced.
- Using smart drugs in combination with alcohol or other drugs may lead to unexpected effects, and may make unwanted side effects more severe.
- Adverse drug effects seem to be more common when these medications are used for reasons other than those they are licenced for.
- Overall, it is unlikely that the benefits of taking smart drugs will outweigh the risks.
- Smart drugs can have a negative impact on mental health and wellbeing. If you're going to use them, ensure that you take breaks between days on which you dose to allow yourself time to rest and recover.
- This resource is intended to highlight key considerations and is not exhaustive.
Additional Considerations for Medical Students
Although relevant to all users, the legal consequences may be more far reaching for the medical student population who would be subject to GMC fitness to practice proceedings, which may have implications for their future career. In a document concerning medical students’ professionalism and fitness to practice the GMC have stated their position on the use of smart drugs by medical students. They raise concerns that, in addition to being a safety issue for the students themselves there are issues around the procurement of the medication online and the behaviour itself. In procuring smart drugs online students would be circumventing the appropriate clinical governance, safe prescription and monitoring consistent with safe medical practice. Additionally, they go on to state that a medical student illicitly procuring drugs to enhance their performance raises concerns about that individual’s insight, judgement, personal decision making and appetite for risk taking. The GMC feel that this sets a dangerous precedent for future doctors who will one day be making prescribing decisions for patients, as well as being a probity issue.
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