Students at one UK university is going to be using cocaine in the name of science specifically, they’ll be taking part in a clinical study to higher understand how the substance impacts the human body.

The research will be happening at King´s College London, where hundreds of undergraduate students have obtained emails inviting these to participate in a study “involving nasal administration” of the Class A drug, London Evening Standard reporters Benjamin Russell and Maxine Frith wrote on Friday.

Participants in the study is going to be asked to provide biological samples, including blood, urine, hair, sweat, and saliva, on multiple occasions and won’t be allowed to cut or die their hair for a four-month follow-up period, they explained. Those who participate will be rewarded with “reasonable financial compensation” for his or her time and expenses.

Those who are involved with recreational drug abuse are barred from taking part in the study, which has been approved by the London Westminster Research Ethics Committee and will also be supervised by doctors at the Guy’s and St. Thomas´ Hospital clinical toxicology department, Russell and Frith added.

Furthermore, according to The Telegraph, medical and dental students will also be barred from taking part in the study, that is only open to men between 25 and 40. The trial, the newspaper reports, will involve seven hospital visits over a 120 day period and will start with a suitability screening during the first stage.

“It is really an important scientific study to investigate how cocaine and its metabolites are dispersed through the human body,” a school spokesman told reporters. “All of the relevant ethical approvals were received for this study. The study is going to be conducted under the highest level of medical supervision inside a dedicated clinical research suite.”

“The email has attracted online comments and jokes from students,” said Russell and Frith. “The university includes a track record of research into the use and results of illegal drugs, including studies in to the genetic reasons for addiction and papers on whether certain substances ought to be legalized.”

They report that an estimated 700,000 UK residents used cocaine this year, which makes it the 2nd most widely used illegal drug behind only marijuana.

According to the National Institute on Substance abuse (NIDA), there have been approximately 1.9 million Americans who have been current cocaine users in 2008, with most of them in the 18- to 25-year-old age bracket.