LS investigates Modafinil – a drug to replace sleep

Aged 10, I asked my mum the following question – ‘Why do we have to sleep? We only live once and we spend half of it asleep!’

Imagine a world where you could not only survive, but excel on an hour or two of sleep a night. This is the latest offer from the pharmaceutical world. Just by popping a simple pill users can bypass sleep altogether or survive on as little as an hour a night while enhancing their concentration and focus. All this without the jitters and eventual crash that can follow a Starbucks binge.

The drug is called Modafinil. Before you get your shoes on to head to the nearest outlet of Boots – Modafinil is illegal without a prescription and when unregulated. So why and how are hundreds of students, including English student Joel, turning to this new ‘wonder drug’?

“There’s been a lot of talk of people at Oxford and Cambridge doing it, so I thought if they can do it – why can’t I?”

“I bought it off the internet no problem. It’s about £1 a hit. Very good value! Considering you get four to six hours out of a small dose – I guess with a bigger dose you get longer than that. It’s incredibly easy to buy – all you need is a credit card and that’s about it. It comes through the post. They shipped it out from India I think – where the rules are more relaxed,” Joel told me.

Modafinil was first manufactured in France in the 90s. It is a central-nervous-system stimulant used in the treatment of narcolepsy and occasionally in the treatment of depression. When correctly prescribed and administered by a qualified doctor, the drugs can be safe and beneficial. However, it seems increasingly students like Joel are taking the role of doctor and are self-prescribing.

Modafinil remains illegal in the UK without a prescription, yet people like Joel continue to use the drug unregulated. Joel explained:

“I’d heard a lot of people saying they felt really clever on it – but I didn’t find this was the case. It was more I felt no need to go and do something else – I had complete focus on the task in hand with no distractions. There were certain parts of it where I felt over stimulated and just wanted to take a little break. My heart rate felt like it was going a little too high. But nothing too scary. The only negative I really see about it is a tiny bit of agitation. But that happens on lots of drugs, with Modafinil it wasn’t as pronounced.”

Joel experienced few side effects; however, with many unsure of the correct dosage, horror stories have predictably emerged. Some users claim to have passed out after using the drug for extended time and also report uncontrollable nose bleeds.  Bizarre side effects include flatulence and pee that can only be described as smelling particularly unsavory. To me, these physical side effects suggest Modafinil can’t be doing great things to your insides. However, as Joel mentioned, Modafinil is unlikely to be abused.

It promotes no ‘high’ or mood enhancement. But this doesn’t stop users from abusing it over extended periods of time and upping the recommended dosage as they please. It seems that this self-administration is where the problems lie.

“I would probably take it again. It’s becoming more and more popular as people find out about it – it’s becoming more wide spread. I think it’s definitely better than any alternatives. I know some people are prescribed Ritalin and then that gets sold on – I think that has a much more negative effect whereas this seemed more gentle. The potential for abuse on it is pretty low – it’s not something you could go out on. The only problem I can think of is that if people take it for long periods of time they can become slightly dependant on it.”

While the makers insist the drug is to aid sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, its popularity as a ‘lifestyle’ drug is rising. The French government indicated that the Foreign Legion used Modafinil during certain covert operations. The United States military have investigated Modafinil for use by its soldiers, who often have to be awake and alert for 72 hours at a time. One study on helicopter pilots suggested that 600mg of Modafinil given in three doses can be used to keep pilots alert with only eight hours of sleep in an 88 hour period.

Surely this drug can’t be providing us with a long-term solution, giving us the goods thatå sleep provides. There must be a ‘sleep debt’ that users will eventually have to pay off? Maybe I just don’t understand the science.

When I posed my concerns to Joel, he claimed users don’t have to pay back any “sleep debt”. While normally if you stayed awake for 48 hours straight you would have to sleep for about 16 hours to catch up, Joel said: “Modafinil somehow allowed me to catch up with only 8 hours or so.”

The question ‘But how?’ is the part I find most disconcerting about Modfinil – the answer is noone really knows!     The company that produces Modfinil thinks it understands the drug, but is shifty when it comes to details. Like other stimulant drugs, Modafinil prevents nerve cells from reabsorbing the excitatory neurotransmitter dopamine once released in the brain.

The difference is that it does this without producing the addictive highs and painful crashes associated with most stimulants. But its workings  remain a mystery. Does this worry Joel?

“That’s always a worry. I do worry it could have effects I’m unaware of – as with anything. At the end of the day it’s a risk I think is worth taking because of the ease at which it helped me with my work. I think the trade off seems worth it. I think, with any kind of drug like this or one taken for recreational use, there’s always going to be more hype about it than is possibly the case”.

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