College professors ‘take drugs to help them focus’

UNIVERSITY professors are taking so-called ‘study drugs’ to aid them at work, a scientist has claimed.

Hannah Critchlow, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University, said that around 20 per cent of academics are now taking drugs that help them focus.

Prescription drugs like Modafinil or Ritalin are used to treat conditions including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and Alzheimer’s disease.

Though they are prescription drugs, they can be easily purchased online, and are increasingly being taken by students to help them focus in exams, as well as by top professors applying for research funding.

She told an audience at the festival: ‘One in five academic professors admit to taking them in order to help them with their grant writing and their committee meeting concentration.’

Charlotte Rampling said her film career was very nearly ruined before it even started when in 1966 a naked photograph of her sat on a chamber pot was published in a book.

Miss Rampling, 71, said: ‘For the first time and last time ever in my life I questioned what I had done. I could have actually ruined my career.’