It’s a legal high, yet it leaves students ashamed. It’s safe and students and teachers alike are doing it in liquid form every day. It’s called caffeine.

Senior Victoria Gehry, (name changed for anonymity), says students at Gunn who use NoDoz pills feel that the stigma surrounding drugs makes the legal pills seem taboo, too. “I kind of feel like a druggy,” Gehry said. Stanford law professor and bioethicist Henry Greely called the feeling of taboo a dichotomy in American drug culture. “Our society has puts a lot of social meaning, usually negative, on ‘drugs’ or ‘pills’,” Greely said. “Caffeine in coffee is a beverage; caffeine in a tablet is a drug and hence culturally more suspect. We don’t think we should use drugs, we want to avoid using drugs, and at the same time a different part of us has his double espressos.”

Gehry’s NoDoz fix is equivalent to a moderate coffee drinker’s habit, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. The Service’s Web site states that three eight-ounce cups of coffee per day is a moderate amount of caffeine for the average person. A Starbucks Grande cappuccino and a double espresso each contain 150 mg of caffeine. Each dime-sized NoDoz pills contains 200 mg of caffeine, but can be cut in half for a lower dose.

Senior Boone Carter, (name changed for anonymity) a varsity athlete, reports that he regularly takes one to two pills each day. “I would argue that it is not more dangerous than coffee,” Carter said. According to Carter, students are afraid that school administration will view the pills as a drug. NoDoz “seems more sketchy,” when compared to its drinkable counterpart, Gehry said.

NoDoz pills can cause sleep deprivation and signs of habituation or addiction. “The first few times you take them, you can’t fall asleep,” Gehry said. However, she has become habituated to NoDoz. “Now I can fall asleep.” Gehry also reports signs of addiction. When she stops the pills, she gets headaches. These withdrawal symptoms are similar whether users get their caffeine from coffee, soft drinks or pills, according to research published in the journal Psychopharmacology. Withdrawal symptoms can range from headaches to fatigue, drowsiness, depression, irritability, difficulty concentrating and flu-like symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and muscle pain or stiffness.

According to Greely, the use of other cognitive-enhancing drugs is simply an evolution of caffeine-fueled study sessions. “I think cognitive enhancement is inevitable because neuroscience will lead to better drugs to treat brain-based diseases, some of which will also work for the healthy,” he said. “I suspect the next big hit will be drugs for enhancing memory, developed and sold for people with early stages of dementia but helpful for others as well.” But according to Greely, cognitive enhancement must be viewed with regards to its risks as well as its benefits. Prescription stimulants, such as Adderall and Ritalin, for example, are illegal. “[They] should not be used by someone whose situation has not been assessed by his or her physician,” he said.

According to Greely, being cautious about pill use is important. “Those who use No-Doz or other caffeine pills will find it easier to move to other drugs than those who just use caffeine in beverages,” he said. “They’ve already consciously broken the social norm.” He recommends exercising the same kind of risk assessment for any forms, though. Gehry and Carter both cited using NoDoz to stay up to finish homework.

“High school students under 18 should think about the pluses and minuses of using caffeine,” Greely said, “Including the encouragement it gives to procrastination by allowing someone to wait to the last minute while having some hope of avoiding disaster.”