When we hoped for more responsible prescribing practices we once again find that it is all about "growing the market."

It will be interesting to see how persons choosing to take prescribed ADHD drugs for "performance enhancement" fare when seeking to purchase life, health and disability insurance.

I put this on my site yesterday as well, but I was horrified when I saw it...

Yeah, in theory I'm open to the idea that "responsible" adults can do what they want with their bodies, but this is just another mass addiction waiting to happen...

I mostly just share the sentiment, "Can't we just be who we already are and leave it at that?"

I think the more we put toxic mind altering chemicals in our bodies on a regular basis the further we get from our true natures and any ability to be with who we really are.

It's true that if any drug were used occasionally there would be no need for concern, but we know that the drugs in question here are highly addictive...this is an insane idea to entertain as being appropriate for anyone who wants "enhance" their brain...I think one would do much better in the long run by enhancing themselves with good food and meditation and clean living, but again we see the short cut being pushed here...

Cocaine was once heavily pushed by doctors as well...we see history repeat itself again and again except the stakes keep getting higher...and more and more of the population included.

Philip,

Thanks so much for posting on this--a friend forwarded the article to me this morning and I couldn't believe my eyes.

Now that I've come to terms with the reality of the piece (unless it's a cleverly disguised hoax of the Sokal variety), I find myself deeply ambivalent. The piece seems to challenge two widely held and deeply ingrained attitudes towards drug use. On one hand, it's an off-the-cuff acknowledgment of the fundamental disconnect between seeing self-enhancement with drugs as unethical and seeing drugs as a necessary part of human natureculture. But on the other hand, as you point out, Greely and company really don't seem to care about the fact that we (scientists, philosophers, social scientists) are really, really far from having any clue of how these drugs are working on our bodies or what kinds of damage they are (or are not) doing.

But in either case, I think the issue of drug use--psychiatric, performance-enhancing, recreational, or whatever--really complicates the issue of medical ethics, especially in the domain of mental health. Who counts as "mentally competent," and who has ethical and financial access to psychopharmaceuticals?

I'm really glad that you were one of the first to pick up on this article, since the debate is firmly anchored in cultural hypocrisies having to do with who we are, who we can be, and who we're supposed to be. Thanks for all your great work.

"Society must respond to the growing demand for cognitive enhancement. That response must start by rejecting the idea that 'enhancement' is a dirty word, argue Henry Greely and colleagues."

Why don't they say it all:

The human brain is not well designed and need some fixing. As a matter of fact the human body is not... blah blah blah... you must go to the doctor to know what drug you must take. Your body must be adjusted.

It seems that "a pill for every ill" is in the past.
Now it's time for a pill for every action.
I would like to know when the pills for iatrogenic diseases will be on the market.

The conspiracy to make people believe they are not fine is endless.

This is just weird and really rather disturbing coming from Nature which is quite a prestigious publication. One thing that it puts pay to is the argument I remember reading in Hallowell's book Driven to Distraction that you can tell who really has ADHD by whether the medication works or not. Yes, that was the diagnostic criterion he finally ended up with after blithering his way through a number of other very iffy and subjective behavioral symptoms to determine just who has ADHD and who doesn't. So now suddenly we find out that they work for anyone (we all must have ADHD) -- as if anyone who has half a brain didn't already know that. This stuff, as one friend put it, is "time release meth or cocaine." I've called them "steroids for the brain" and another moniker is "math pills." Yeah they work really well for perseverative, task oriented assignments but watch out for any creative, playful, imaginative side to your personality and be ready for some nasty depression down the road if you don't have heart problems or psychosis first.

This article is absolute capitalist grossness. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves why our society is set up so that people have to take drugs in order to get a "competitive edge" and finish college or stay awake while sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours a day. Okay, so great, everyone gets high on speed so they can "multi-task" like robots with Microsoft Windows for brains. What happens when the whole thing falls apart because all college kids and the corporate workforce have turned into tweakers?!

It is odd to think of a society where everyone takes speed all day. I wonder if these folks have interviewed any one who has been awake for three days due to amphetamines to see how much their "performance" is "enhanced."

According to an article in the Washington Post a couple of years ago:

Although the drugs may allow people to stay awake longer and finish work faster, scientists who published a new study concluded that about 1.6 million teenagers and young adults had misused these stimulants during a 12-month period and that 75,000 showed signs of addiction.

The study found that both men and women were equally likely to be misusing the drugs, but that women seemed to be at greater risk of dependence -- characterized by a lack of control, physical need and growing tolerance for the drug -- while men seemed to be at greater risk of abuse, in which the medication was used in dangerous situations, said lead author Larry Kroutil, who studies health behavior and education at RTI International, a nonprofit research group.

You can find the entire article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022401773.html

As a woman who was prescribed Adderall for several years to "augment" my increasingly useless high-dose antidepressants, I will say that physical tolerance shows up fast, and the addiction can be ruthless. Of course, it does help you lose weight... but so did Dexedrine in the 1960's. And so does crystal meth.

People should just leave people alone. If some want to take these drugs and are causing no harm to others then it's none of anyone else's business. It amazes me here at how many seem to know what's best for everyone else.

The point, A Believer, is that the health of each and every one of us as individuals actually depends very much on the health of the community as a whole so even if you think something you take isn't doing any harm to anyone else you might just be wrong. It doesn't do any of us any good at all to have a bunch of unhealthy people surrounding us. And would you say the same thing about heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine etc.? Someone might take any or all of these things and ostensibly not be harming anyone else but he really is by incurring the loss to society of his own well being.

This weeks issue of TIME, dated December 15, in the Briefing section on page 13, shows a graph: 45.79% of college students have psychiatric problems, 47.74% of non-college students have psychiatric problems. I'm getting a little tired of hearing about how people are more "screwed up" than they really are. Is individualism dying before it's had a chance to really catch on?

STOP the WORLD, I WANT to get OFF. Or at least slow it down, pretty please.