RAY BROOK -- A room full of adult students listened intently to their instructor describe how thoughts jump tiny synaptic gaps between 100 billion brain cells.

They leaned over scientific drawings of a one-eyed neuron and visualized how molecules tricked into chemical malfunction cause addiction.

Professor Karl Kabza crossed off squares on the chalk board to show how cocaine suffocates the brain's uptake of serotonin, the human neurotransmitter that modulates mood, aggression and sleep.

He mapped out a path of alcohol addiction, telling how drugs are sometimes used to stop it or change it, how chemical counteraction works and sometimes doesn't, how the body craves chemical balance.

Kabza listed side effects ranging from nausea to cardiac arrest in eight anti-addiction drugs.

The students listened, looking focused and curious.

"Besides being obligated to go by FDA rules, don't the designers of these medications have any kind of moral goals?" asked one student sitting at the front of the class.

"Isn't good decision-making an integral part of a drug-treatment program?" asked another.

Kabza replied with a question: "If drugs remove the decision, is that necessarily good?"

The room got quiet for a minute, thoughtful.

The classroom could be like that in any college, but for coils of razor wire lining the fence outside.

The 21 students had just turned in homework finished in their cell blocks.

Each one -- all inmates at Federal Correctional Institute Ray Brook -- earned a place in this course through a rigorous application process and honor program. They are working now toward certification as alcoholism and substance-abuse counselors.

And they'll have another 100 hours of coursework to finish once they get out.