Problem with Provigil?

Yahoonews reports:

A so-called "smart drug" popular with young people may carry more of an addiction risk than thought, a small government study suggests. Scans of 10 healthy men showed that the prescription drug Provigil caused changes in the brain's pleasure center, very much like potentially habit-forming classic stimulants. Modafinil, the drug's generic name, is sometimes used as an illegal study aid by college students.

"It would be wonderful if one could take a drug and be smarter, faster or have more energy," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who led the study with a Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist. "But that is like fairy tales. We currently have nothing that has those benefits without side effects."

The study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, may bust the myth that the drug is safe for healthy people, experts said.

Of patent matters with Provigil, see

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2004/12/provigil-attenace-nuvigil.html

Enantiomers, racemates, and the chiral switch