Background
What happened to the ?brain pills??
The university has banned the self-proclaimed “concentration boosters” from a new vending machine.
Thursday 24 January 2019

A few weeks ago, a new vending machine was installed at the Lipsius. It is filled with practical stuff you didn’t know you needed, like set squares, nail files and the controversial Braincaps – pills to improve your concentration. Last year, a similar vending machine appeared at the University of Amsterdam, which banned the Braincaps following complaints from a pharmacist.

Leiden University has now decided to remove the pills too. “Because they seem to cause a fuss and we don’t want that”, university spokesman Caroline van Overbeeks explains when asked by Mare.

“Pity”, says Kevin de Krieger, founder of SchoolSupply vending machines. “Braincaps were designed by a doctor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam to reduce Ritalin use among students. They are, in fact, nothing more than vitamin pills, straightforward food supplements.”

The doctor, Mucahit Yalaniz, thinks that removing the pills is overdoing it a bit. “The reasons for removing them are never based on actual fact. It looks as if people are just not ready for them.” The blue-and-white capsules contain caffeine, and L-Theanine to restrict the undesirable side-effects of the caffeine. “When you drink coffee, you’re doing exactly the same as you do when you take a Braincap, but coffee gives you palpitations. Everyone’s just in a panic because it’s in a capsule.”

In the meantime, vitamin C pills are still allowed to be sold in the vending machine. “Braincaps are just a carefully designed vitamin pill. If they were dangerous, I really would not have been allowed to sell them and I wouldn’t want my name linked to them. My mission is to offer students a safe alternative to Ritalin.”

Susan Wichgers