IME, in academic biology, the answer is generally no. Personally, I do use, but it isn't a result of competition, but rather a desire to achieve the most I can for a goal I care about. I don't feel pressured in any way to make this decision; if anything, the pressure is slightly in the other direction.

The big trouble with it is that a drug -- any drug -- will alter your perception of the world such that it is difficult to know with absolute confidence whether you are taking the drug for purely rational reasons to further your personal goals...or not.

Amphetamines at least, based on my experience and reading of the literature, improve your ability to do huge amounts of light/easy work at the expense of "deep" thinking. This means that they would be most effective for people who are knee-deep in work that is too easy for them and need to get more throughput. Undergrad is exactly this -- tons of relatively easy work. Professional life is not; quality is in the long term valued over shitty quantity.

I hope your article won't be a complete hatchet job on white-collar drug use -- the reality is very complex. Humans in general, and white-collar workers in particular, are living in environments and doing things extremely different from what humans evolved for. Thus, some of us use drugs to tweak our biology to adapt to the situation. Assuming that these do in fact improve performance -- a very disputable assumption -- this would be a success story for human intelligence and adaptability.

I don't want to do a hatchet job on white collar drug use, no. I want to learn what's actually being used, the extent of the use and then draw some meaning from that, meaning that doesn't intend to say whether the use is bad or good but just why it exists and what that might mean about work culture, society, etc. If you'd be open to talking more about this separately, pls email me at [email protected]. Thanks.

I'm in my last semester of college as a Computer Science student. I know a ridiculously large number of people who use adderall or vyvanse to gain a competitive edge.

Does that make you feel you should be using something too?

No. I think that I would enjoy them too much, so I know I shouldn't participate. Also, I still do better on exams than most of the people I know who use these, so it seems unnecessary.