I am preparing my role for a debate organized in group. We are supposed to be a group of people (students, professors, parents) meeting after the Director of our University discovered some of his students are taking neuro-enhancing drugs to boost their performance during the exam. We are debating on whether the University should forbid these drugs or not, and if yes, how could they detect the students have or have not taken the drug. I am one of the student who took smart pills and is in favor or forbidding them. As I am preparing for a debate, I mainly prepared my arguments but I don't have a specifically organized text, and no conclusion. I would just like to know if there are mistakes, or if there are some expressions that would fit my situation better.
Role play : a student who took smart pills
Hi all. My name is Mathilde and I am 21. I am a student in the 3rd year of laws at Rennes 1 University and I have taken Piracetam for half a year. From this experience, I can demonstrate the risks of these so-called smart drugs, and I believe our University should set punishing actions to prevent their use.
My ultimate goal is to be a magistrate. As you know, these studies require mass memorizing.
As I was very late in studying for an exam in international administrative law, a friend of mine proposed me a neuro-enhancing pill that, he said, would increase my ability to memorize. It did help, and allowed me to focus for a very long time without feeling tiredness. When taking the exam, I could remember very precisely each detail of the course. That was incredible.
All in all, I have been taking Piracetam for over 7 months. And all this time, I was neglecting the side effects.
At first, it induced slight abdominal pain, which became more and more important with time. That caused me appetite loss and sometimes nausea, and after these 7 months, I had lost almost 10 kilos.
I became obsessed with my results and wanted to do better every time. This led me to taking an even more important dose of Piracetam which could have been extremely harmful for my health. My friend, who had been taking Piracetam for over a year before he introduced me to it, ended up in the ER a few times because of muscular pain or abnormal heartbeat. When he told me about these experiences I decided to quit.
It took me quite a long time to realize I was addicted. I have asked for help to specialists and I was lucky to get out of this nightmare without too many problems. My withdrawal was not easy and I have suffered from different symptoms such as drug craving, anxiety that my grades would suddenly decrease, and an increased appetite : I have put on 5 kilos since then.
From my experience, I can tell how dangerous smart pills are. That is why I am in favor of a penalization of those who take smart drugs because I believe this will help prevent others from starting to take these drugs. I think it is the role of the University to protect its students from the devastating effects of smart drugs.
Should students be penalized or not? Why? How?
I believe students who are taking smart drugs should be strongly penalized, for several reasons.
First, I think this would dissuade most students to even try taking them, because they can be extremely dangerous and it is the responsibility of the university to protect us. I regret taking Piracetam and I think that, if there could have been repercussions on my career, I would never have tried it.
These punishments should come along with prevention : for example, the university could organize open meetings, with the intervention of health professionals and students like me who have been taking smart drugs and went through their withdrawal. I propose my help for that and am totally open to talking about it and inform students on the neuro-enhancing drugs and their risks.
The university should also inform students on drug withdrawal and create a specialized department with psychologists and addiction specialists at the Student Health Centre, to help those who need.
Another major concern is that if you publicly allow smart drugs in university, there is a high risk that an increased number of students will start taking them even just to keep up with their classmates. It is truly unfair and everyone will end up feeling like they must take these drugs if they want to remain competitive.
It is one of the missions of university to insure equal opportunities between each and every student, and these drugs create an inacceptable inequality between the students who take them and those who don’t.
Students are extremely vulnerable on this matter. Because we all feel like we absolutely must succeed and many of us are becoming obsessed with it. You could be accused of failure to assist persons in danger if you don’t do anything to help us.
No matter how much the cost will be, it is of your interest to do everything you can so that students do not start taking brain-enhancement drugs. Because the money spent on prevention is nothing compared to the compensation you will have to pay if one of your students dies from taking these drugs.
Should university set up some rules to make sure students who sit exams are clean?
Smart drugs are eliminated through the urines, therefore it would be pretty simple to determinate if a student actually took a smart pill before the exam or not. It would indeed be expensive for the university but I believe it is of its responsibility to set up rules in order to protect its students.
As our most important exams take place for five days in a row, we can imagine organizing a general urine test for all students that could be divided up on these five days. I think it is of the responsibility of the university to organize it, because if you ask for a clean urine test done by our GP (family doctor) many could cheat.
It would indeed represent a cost but as I said previously, it is of your interest.