The drug scene at Penn State is not as hardcore as it is at other schools. There are occasional articles in the Collegian about marijuana busts, once in a while a blip about coke, but for the most part, nothing too serious. We’re a drinking town, who needs drugs?

Where am I going with this? Well, Wired magazine’s May issue boasts an article called “12 Ways to Super Charge your Brain.” On the cover, it suggests thinks like herbs and exercise, but on the inside discusses legal and illegal drugs, including Adderall and methamphetamine. In a world where college students will go to any means to find a shortcut to help them “get smart,” is this article simply reporting what certain drugs can do, or is it actually promoting potentially harmful behavior?

I do have a friend at school who says he can’t get any serious work done without smoking up beforehand. The article doesn’t cite weed as a concentration tool, but it does say that nicotine can help with memory formation. Oh, good, maybe smoking cigs while pouring over my Nittany Notes will help me remember everything better.

The magazine claims that the goal of the article was to report scientific evidence, but the strategies they’ve used to make the article interesting create other motives. First off, they’ve got Steve Carrell on the cover with electrodes on his head—anyone knows that in advertising, using popular celebrities is the way to attract people to your magazine and to specific articles. Then they label boxes within the article “Do the Right Drugs” and “How to Get It,” referring to methamphetamine, an illegal drug that they say can “increase concentration and creative output.”

There are disclaimers woven throughout, to save their asses, but as I said before, a younger audience is going to look at this not as scientific fact, but as a guide to how to get smarter by using substances that may or not be legal. I mean seriously, the article mentions getting drugs by tapping into the black market. See for yourself at www.wired.com.