Slashdot Mirror
'Mind Doping' Becoming More Common
runamock writes "The Los Angeles Times is running a story on the growing use of 'mind drugs':
'Forget sports doping. The next frontier is brain doping. ... Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians, corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration or control their emotions. Unlike the anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and blood-oxygen boosters that plague athletic competitions, the brain drugs haven't provoked similar outrage. People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.'" There's an interesting comment on this topic in Fresh Air's top cultural trends of 2007 broadcast.
People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.
That sounds like what I used to say when I was dropping lots of acid and eating oodles of mushrooms in the '80s! Worked for me and never affect me in any way... gotta run, the xmas tree is breathing again.
Trolling is a art,
Caffeine.
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
The former might not be quite so obvious. The reason people are outraged when sportsmen or Olympic competitors use drugs is because people watch it for entertainment and to admire the abilities that people and animals can reach. College tests or business meetings aren't televised for people to be entertained or to marvel at the natural abilities of the human brain, so it doesn't have the same effect. Many horse racing gamblers will often say they wouldn't mind drugs, if the stats were released. While they're probably joking, I think there is some truth to it.
Did anyone else RTFA just to see what they should be taking to enhance their brain?
My Freakin Blog
Doping is doping. If you're altering your state of mind you are still doping. And yes, if you were in an academic competition then taking a drug to make you more clear-thinking is an advantage.
Judging from the quality of articles in this forum, I am sure that Slashdotters are not using the drugs.
I've been taking a mind doping drug every morning for decades. It's called coffee.
The underlying assumption here is that being smarter helps people be successful, but the correlation between intelligence and success is relatively small.
So, many of the drugs may not be doing a whole lot to help people achieve more success.
how hard we try to 'fix' ourselves.
Most of us aren't really as broken as we think.
*cough* Ritalin anyone?
That's the real reason no one is going after these kinds of drugs, because Ritalin and other such drugs fall under the same category.
I find it interesting that in these articles you always see in the news, you never see the word "amphetamine" used. It's always "ADHD drugs". When people term a drug "speed" in the majority of cases, they're referring to the stronger ADHD drugs. Adderall (d-l-amphetamine), dexedrine (d-amphetamine), and desoxyn (methamphetamine!) are all used for this purpose and yet you will never hear in the news that people 3 and up with a diagnosis of add/adhd are using amphetamine or methamphetamine. It's always euphemistically termed. Think about it.
Don't a lot of these drugs have effects similar to amphetamines?
I used to take ephedrine by the truckload until the government basically pulled it off gas station shelves and started tracking purchases of it at pharmacies despite the fact that it is OTC. It pisses me off because I was told that "only methamphetamine cooks buy ephedrine" by local pharmacists, which I know is completely untrue.
After having read this article, I'm unclear as to why these drugs are "ok" with law enforcement, but my use of ephedrine is not.
So the sports product must be controlled with dress code, drug codes etc, and when the sports product does something wrong, something that any normal person would do, the product is released so as not to tarnish the lilly white reputation. The drug thing is not about the product, it is about the image of the product. This goes to non sports products targeted as family and conservative friendly, like the Disney creation Hannah Montana who commands a premium as the product is "wholesome".
Now, if these other mental acts every become marketed as uber conservative family friendly, and the entertainers in these acts every become products, then we are likely to see them crack down on drug use, but that will be the smallest problem. Right now classical performances, art museums, indie public television, all of this type of entertainment, can get away with all sorts of stuff because they now the people who watch are not looking for the bland uber conservative family 'I am afraid of my body' entertainment. Bad or Good, the product is marketed toward a people with a wider view of the world, included families. For instance, parents send their kids off to these top rate colleges, and they must know full well that mistakes will be made in relationships and controlled substances, among other things, so there must be faith that the child has enough intelligence and a sufficiently good upbringing so the parents can let do.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Caffeine, certain foods, certain diets, certain lifestyles, even having a religion can all affect mental qualities.
Am I cheating because I consume certain foods and avoid others before the Scrabble tourney so that I'm at my mental best?
Am I cheating because I live a low-stress lifestyle which makes me better able to train for my charity poker tournament?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So I'm getting a kick out of all these replies... //Fark
Wait. wrong web-site.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
LSD
and other archeological precidents.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
having nothing to do with this subject, but applicable nonetheless
"accelerated decrepitude"
here's another one:
"How much of my long-term health am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of short-term glory?"
from nytimes science section
now enjoy your mind doping
you have been warned
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think that a normal healthy person can get better results with proper sleep, diet and exercise and a daily power nap or meditation. Saying this as a former brain doper that now has better results the natural way.
You assume that it is our lifestyle which is the better and so those that cannot operate as effectively in it are of lower intelligence. The problem with this is their lifestyle (Aboriginal lifestyle anyway, I'm not particularly knowledgable of African or Hispanic people before the spread of white man and the trends they were moving towards) didn't and wouldn't have created global warming. Their society was not severely impacted by droughts. They didn't need to desalinate water or recycle it in order to simply be able have enough for their society. They did not have to go to war simply to use the tools of their society.
To me the Aboriginal who lived in their old ways sounds much more intelligent then myself and most of my fellow Australians and Americans.
http://lolikun.org/
Paul Erdös seemed to be quite productive on uppers:
His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdös drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdös.)[3] After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdös won the bet, but complained during his abstinence that mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine habit.
in fact the 'new format' helps robbIE hide (as in censored) 'unpreferred' comments whilst garnering more&more clicks for his (the sourceforgerIE's) decaying blog, just the way the corepirate nazi advertisers like it. all for a few more stock markup FraUD dollars. we could think of other more appropriate adjectives to describe the behaviour.
Oh and as for agriculture being a sign of intelligence: Egyptians (which have a largely "black" makeup with "southwest asian" influences) also mastered it. And yet they are not a superpower today. Funny that, isn't it?
I just think that the biggest advantage is to already possess a skill. Just because any idiot can take some sort of pharmaceutical does not mean that any idiot can be good at thinking. I'm not sure I even understand this strange distinction that people make between prescription drugs such as Prozac, and "performance enhancing" drugs.
Every foreign chemical introduced into the body is bound to have some sort of unknown or undesirable side effect on someone. The question is how much is the individual willing to balance the risks with the desirable outcome, IMHO. Prozac = artificial happiness. Steroids = artificial physical prowess. Mind dope = artificial clarity.
So what?
This isn't entirely new. The fact that nicotine enhances short term memory has been known for quite a while. I know someone who doesn't smoke but does buy the nicotine gum just so he can get that specific boost.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
do you really think Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Bach, Aristotle, Plato, Newton, and Huxley were wrong?
I did use italics, dumbass!
Anyway, here is meat of my thesis. Either attack my argument or admit defeat!
Very poor Chinese people have come to America over the years and have managed to become very successful in their endeavors here. I am sure you agree with this. Black people who have been much longer than they have not managed to enjoy the same amount of success. It is also true that Chinese people, like many major immigrant groups, have experienced discrimination and abuse at the hands of the people already here. Yet, the Chinese overcame that adversity quickly. Same with the Irish or the Italians.
Race and average IQ are very much correlated. Assuming that we are all equal has not worked and will not work.
That sounds like a great band name... "My Chemical Genius"
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
By the way, there have been a handful of Japanese-American politicians in Congress. Despite the World-War-II internment of Japanese-Americans, they succeeded well after release from the internment camps. Several Japanese-Americans were elected to Congress by districts that were predominantly Caucasian.
On a larger geographic scale, we can see the woeful failure of nations in Africa and South America. Compare their failure to the success of Japan (or even racist South Korea). There is no "white racism" to oppress the South Americans or the Africans. They destroyed their own societies via their intelligence-quotient (IQ) deficiency. These drugs boosting IQ may help them.
Actually, many non-graduate jobs prefer people to be pretty dumb, academically at least. The jobs they offer only require a small amount of training which doesn't require much intelligence or academic ability, and doesn't offer much other than tedium. They don't want to employ someone who has academic prospects for fear that they might leave or just start not caring. This was a problem when I was a high school student - retailers didn't want me because of my straight As - they knew I'd be going to university, while the guy who failed three of his subjects would have much more potential as a long-term employee.
When you're 16 and you've just got As and A*s at GCSE and then you can't even get a summer job, it's pretty disheartening. I'm in my final year of university now and at the beginning of the year I got a part-time (and damn well-paid, for a student at least) job as a PHP developer, though, so I guess it has evened out!
Amnesty International
Given you are incapable of admitting the reality of this, I would find it laughable to respond to the rest of your post. While its possible what you say is true, its also possible a monkey will create Shakespeare on a typewriter. It doesn't mean I'm going to read everything a monkey says on the off chance they do somehow produce Shakespeare.
Why don't you LOOK at my post, moron? Every quote of yours is in italics.
You find it laughable to attack my argument with substance, like I have done with yours, because you have NOTHING to offer to counter it.
Thanks for hilariously making your defeat.
So if you dope your brain with Boron you get a P-type brain, and if you dope your brain with Phosphorus you get an N-type brain. Makes sense.
There are not too many occupations where it's really good to be dumb
On the same topic, I remember hearing about a story where an applicant to a police department was rejected because he was too intelligent:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_56314.html
I wonder how common this practice is? It might explain the currently sorry state of law enforcement.
By your logic, a well-balanced meal, tea, coffee, or even a good nights sleep would be considered doping.
you sir are a moron, firstly Spain is in Europe ergo all Hispanics are of European descent and secondly some people define success as being productive and self-supporting, and others define it as being lazy and have others support them. Egypt was a perennial superpower, until the new kids on the block, the Romans, kicked their asses up around their ears.
Oh, you mean like Apartheid or the Belgian Congo or Imperial Egypt or Imperial India or.... (list goes on FORVEVER...)
Retard, Hispanics are descended from European culture, ever hear of Spain? Conquistadors? Get a clue. Won't bother responding to the rest of your diatribe because I already proved you don't know what you're talking about, and thus anything that follows out of your cowardly mouth is unreliable.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
What is interesting is the following. Due to possessing some European physical features, Hispanics resemble Caucasians more than Asian-Americans. So, Hispanics have experienced less racism (from Caucasians) than Asian-Americans. Yet, Asian-Americans outperform Hispanics, academically.
The inevitable conclusion is that Hispanics suffer from an intelligence-quotient (IQ) deficiency.
It's desperation for success. This drives people to want that extra 10% out of themselves and they'll do anything to get it rather than learning to be content with who they are. Using 'mind-enhancing' drugs may bring brief success, but dependence follows and ultimately the person loses themselves.
I'd agree that a bit in moderation is ok, and perhaps quite good (I'm thinking of coffee and tea here).
John_Chalisque
That blacks have failed to assimilate well in the large scale exploitative hellhole that is America is no insult to black men. All you appear to be telling me is that Chinese culture involves the same desire for control and class on a massive scale as American - which can be confirmed by looking at China, the most successful fascist state the world has ever seen.
Most Slashdot posters forget just what a small, privileged population of their country they are. There's nothing "great" about America, unless you are part of that privileged elite; sure, there's a greater proportion of satisfied customers than you'll find in North Korea, but you really have to look at tribal cultures (and their modern derivatives) to witness advanced society. To wit, one where the Slashdot elite don't tell the other 95% how good they have it.
(I'm fairly certain you're not a troll, as no troll would put repeated effort into such poorly-built argument.)
Interesting the term never surfaced in the article...perhaps the author needs some. OTOH, the number of misspelled, grammatically flawed entries here would indicate many of us could use a little mental boost.
007: "Who are you?"
Pussy: "My name is Pussy Galore."
007: "I must be dreaming..."
Drugs like Adderall -- Adderall is amphetamine, pure and simple -- aren't making anyone smarter, they're just keeping you up longer.
And amphetamine (and Ritalin, aka methylphenidate, which more resembles cocaine than amphetamine) both cause terrible brain damage when used for long periods. Or, call it brain change if you like, but the facts are that when you quit you're left with changes that last years to the brain, and which are associated with nasty neurological problems like lethargy, depression, and a lack of mental vigilance. (I.e., exactly the opposite of the effects the drugs have on people who like them.)
And drugs like Aricept and others, i.e. everything but the stimulants, are very much unproven.
So, nothing new here.
If anyone really wants a mind booster that's likely safe, try Piracetam.
And, I also should add, the beta blockers are in no way mental boosters -- if anything, they slow you down a bit! There effect, as the article described, is very much physical, not mental. The only reason it eases anxiety is that the drugs stop the vicious circle of anxiety provoking physical nervousness provoking further anxiety, and so on.
And remember, if you take Adderall, don't consider yourself any better than a crystal meth head -- the difference between methamphetamine and amphetamine, which is what adderall is (mixed amphetamine salts, to be exact, both dextro and levoamphetamine), is about four hours of effectiveness, and the need to take a slightly higher dose by weight to achieve effects. And Ritalin users -- you're no different than a coke user.
Enjoy yourself, and remember that if you use these drugs, all the anti-drug messages the government pumps out about coke and meth apply equally to these prescription stimulants.
That blacks have failed to assimilate well in the large scale exploitative hellhole that is America is no insult to black men
So their inability to form even a cohesive society within their own neighborhoods is something to be proud of? Sorry buddy, but if you can't even build a local community, you have nothing to say for yourself.
All you appear to be telling me is that Chinese culture involves the same desire for control and class on a massive scale as American - which can be confirmed by looking at China, the most successful fascist state the world has ever seen.
What exactly do the Chinese control within the United States? Are we living under Chinese rule in America? LMAO.
There's nothing "great" about America, unless you are part of that privileged elite
Yeah, I guess access to running water, food, jobs, and relative safety and security are not great things, huh?
sure, there's a greater proportion of satisfied customers than you'll find in North Korea, but you really have to look at tribal cultures (and their modern derivatives) to witness advanced society
Tribal cultures are not advanced, they're simple. Their social interactions are very plain and simple, they have built very little in the way of original culture, and they have failed to manipulate their surroundings beyond basic procurement of food and building of shelter. How is that advanced?
To wit, one where the Slashdot elite don't tell the other 95% how good they have it.
The other 95%. Please, you're silly. I am a middle class American. 95% of the world does not live in "tribal culture" or otherwise live in squalor.
(I'm fairly certain you're not a troll, as no troll would put repeated effort into such poorly-built argument.)
The pot calling the kettle black?
"Martha J. Farah, a bioethicist who teaches undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania, said she was beginning to detect resentment toward students who used the drugs from classmates who did not. She has wondered whether improving productivity through artificial means also might undermine the value of hard work.
In an article published today in the journal Nature, Morein-Zamir and University of Cambridge neuroscientist Barbara J. Sahakian say that clear guidelines are needed to decide what's fair."
The problem with this is the assumption that without these drugs, there exists a level playing field. Financial resources, environment, and genetics are all things which put people on a non-leveling playing field, yet who would think of considering whether someone had access to good books or money for tutors as a child as part of any fairness guidelines?
The playing field is amazingly lopsided as-is; assuming these drugs are affordable to many/most, they should be allowed, if not encouraged. On the flipside, if they are aren't particularly affordable, they're likely to exacerbate the situation.
Every job that I see these days says something like "ability to multi-task" in their descriptions. Avoiding distractions will make it harder to "multi task" because multi tasking is just moving from one distraction to another and doing all your job functions poorly. I really hate the corp types who insist that they can multi task well when all of brain science says otherwise.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
"Just think what it would do to anybody's career in about any area. There are not too many occupations where it's really good to be dumb." Uh. President? anyone?
This stinks like pharmaceutical white-wash to me: "lookie, people are using our Meth to become smarter! Pay no attention to the children who experience sudden death while using our product!"
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Sure, you might be able to think like Einstein but will you end up growing bigger testicles, better-defined pecs, and increased sperm motility? Where will the self-respecting geek be then?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I have experimented with Nootropil.
It worked, in a subtle way. And bear in mind the down is bigger than the up, useful for getting out of a dopey mood. Could be a lifesaver if you had to perform. However, you should be able to make yourself alert without drugs.
However:
- it doesn't fix confidence, just the ability to think quick if you want it
- you can still feel sleepy or lazy. If at a party it just prevents that mind freeze
- the next day I felt as dopey as I felt alert before; i.e. the low is a little greater than the high so you have to be prepared for this
- it creates dependency. You notice the times of not being on it more, obviously, the drugs don't work
I now keep just a few half tabs in case I need to drive back from somewhere for work / prevent getting stranded and for emergencies.
That's my experience on the subject.
A blog I run for the wealth
What is interesting is the following. Due to possessing some European physical features, Hispanics resemble Caucasians more than Asian-Americans. So, Hispanics have experienced less racism (from Caucasians) than Asian-Americans. Yet, Asian-Americans outperform Hispanics, academically.
The inevitable conclusion is that Hispanics suffer from an intelligence-quotient (IQ) deficiency.
Also, all of us are descended from the original inhabitants of Africa. However, simply sharing some genetic material does not then mean that everyone has the same IQ. What counts is the difference in genetic makeup. That difference explains the difference in IQ.
Hispanics of 2007 are not genetically identical to the original inhabitants of Spain in 1606.
Funny how someone quick to defend one set of ethnic groups from attack is more than happy to make a grossly bigoted statement about the Chinese. Hypocrisy, itz.
We had two bags of grass, ...
seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole multi colored collection of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether.
So there you have it. All you need to worry about is the ether... Next.
sinister. Sb mentioned "Vitamin D".
I graduated in '02, back then most of these drugs were taken for pleasure.
I have friends who graduated in '04. In the two year timespan they described a very different situation. Already a shift had occurred where you can literally hear sniffing of all kinds in the university library of people taking amphetamines. Nasal consumption is more direct so a lot of people just snort.
By my friends' estimates greater than 90% of the students in my old uni's library were on these amphetamine-like compounds to study before their exams or write a big paper. A lot of them describe a feeling that they can no longer study well without taking them and are somewhat dependent.
Who knows where this will lead? The only thing I know is that there are side effects and people are kidding themselves if they think they can get away with increased performance and decreased need for sleep in any long term way. These are not new drugs, they have been around for a long time and they were given to soldiers of every faction in WW2; Germans, Americans, Japanese etc. Furthermore, a lot of people think they contributed to the Japanese who were willing to kamikaze in their planes. I'm not sure if being high as a kite on amphetamine helps, but I would suspect it does. Hitler himself used to get daily amphetamine cocktail injections.
Nevertheless I do believe universities are the place where most of this use is currently taking place. But how much of a new phenomenon is it? There have always been people who think getting high on cocaine gave them the same benefits, didn't wall street run on cocaine in the 80's? And cocaine has been around a shitlong time. So have amphetamines. What's changed? I think the factor is that they're now prescribed en masse to kids who have 'ADD' and it filtered into the uni populous this way.
Liberty.
Sharon Morein-Zamir, a psychologist at Cambridge University who writes about the ethics of brain enhancement, said her interest in the medications was largely academic. But when someone she knew who had been taking Provigil for a neurological condition offered her some pills, Morein-Zamir's curiosity was piqued.
"I knew the literature and wondered what it felt like," she said.
The drug helped her focus as she worked at her computer for hours straight. But she wondered if it was a placebo effect.
Prescriptions for Inderal and other beta blockers can be readily obtained from physicians. Tuck said some doctors had told her they used the drugs themselves to calm their own nerves before making presentations at medical meetings. Musicians say their drug use is all aboveboard.
and finally a few comments on negative side effects...
But cosmetic neurology, as some call it, has risks. Ritalin, Adderall and other ADHD drugs can cause headaches, insomnia and loss of appetite. Provigil can make users nervous or anxious and bring on headaches, while beta blockers can cause drowsiness, fatigue and wheezing.
One Stanford University study found that low doses of Aricept improved the performance of healthy pilots as they tried to master new skills in a flight stimulator, but the side effects -- dizziness and vomiting -- were less than desirable in a pilot.
-- QED
Bah... I can't take the article seriously when they don't mention The Simpsons' Focusyn: Summary and details.
Stimulants (amphetamines, modafinil) can be addictive (or have potential to be--modafinil is Schedule IV), beta-blockers (Inderal, aka propanolol) cannot. There is a huge, huge difference between the two. Beta-blockers have long been indicated for anxiety and are well tolerated in most patients, your grandfather is probably on beta-blockers, I'm not really sure what relevance they have to TFA. I guess the journalist here doesn't know the difference or just doesn't care.
(Not a doctor, not a pharm anything, just an ordinary medical student speaking. Merry Christmas!)
Acetyl-L-Carnitine plus alpha lypoic acid plus Selegiline (or here). ALC plus ALA is a memory improvement therapy for aging rats. I figure that if it's good enough for our elected "representatives", it's good enough for me. Selegiline inhibits the breakdown of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is frequently associated with "pleasurable" activities, such as food, sex, or slash-dot. In doses higher than 20mg, Selegiline can have side effects, such as high blood pressure and hypertension (a hypertensive crisis) when certain foods are consumed. The biggest offenders are pickled and fermented items.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Should coffee produce outrage? It has similar effects. It is more addictive than adderoll. Why is there this religion of "natural"? Just because the random nature has produced one chemical in a plant by accident but didn't produce the other we should assume that the one produced by nature is more "natural"? Well, then cocaine is natural. It's just an extract. I wouldn't recommend it instead of adderall.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Bacopa, Brahmii, and others....herbs of the Ayruvedic tradition, all used now and for thousands of years by many students and engineers all over India to give them an edge... and steal your job ;) . Bacopa at least has a fair amount of clinical studies to back it up too and these herbs have a long history of safety.
Taking drugst to improve your performance is cheating. Of course the ones doing it allways deny this. Befere that they deny taking anyting. It is typical for the mid-set of the cheater to allways believe they are justifed and not doing anything wrong. Even most common pick-pockets believe that "circumstances drive me to do it".
These people are scum. They lower standards. They try to create the impression of talent, were there is none. However, typcally, these people do serios and often irreperable damage to themselves and gets their punishment automatically. Of course then they claim they "dod not know" or that "they are not responsible for what happened to them". Of course they are.
Dishonesty is one of the ugliest possible human characteristics. Being dishonest and proud about is is about the only possible way to make it worse.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
and counting on once-a-year doctor visits to control it
:( ...but the benefits of not being a complete spaz anymore are worth it to me.
Ritalin and Adderall (etc) are Schedule II Narcotics in the USA, meaning no more than a 30 day supply may be prescribed or dispensed. One time my doctor prescribed me a 35day supply, and the pharmacist could only fill 30 days worth, which is how i first learned of this. I must see the doc every 4 weeks-- not a cheap proposition for a geek without health insurance. I spend about $300 per month between cost of generic Adderall and doctor visit bill.
As for meth causing lesions etc.. I think this is a sideeffect of descending into total addiction, where one fails to observe basic hygiene, or even to eat with regularity, and the immune system becomes taxed, etc.
Apologies for the AC post.
Is it still cheating if you're actually prescribed these drugs for a disorder? And I will avoid the easy trap of picking on your typo's.. (e.g. "ceating" =D)
The more time Passes the more fiction becomes truth.
Rimmer: What's this? Learning drugs? They're illegal, matey. Where did you get them? I'm afraid you're in very serious, grave, deep trouble, Lister. Where did you get them? I want names, I want places, I want dates.
Lister: Arnold Rimmer, his locker, this morning.
Granted, not every classical musician you see on stage is taking pills. But there are a number who will not go on stage without them. Personally, I subscribe to the banana method. Large quantities of bananas eaten for a week before a high-pressure situation is a common "natural" practice amongst my peers as well.
But mind doping something new? Bah! This practice has been going on for a long time in the music world.
"LSD and mushrooms come to mind. LSD becomes a smart drug at 10% of the "psychedelic dosage" and behaves like it's cousin, Hydergine."
Can you site that? Interesting.... kinda cool...we were taking LSD a LOT when we were all 4.0 O-chem/Physics/adv. calc.... and of course we were also reading the DUNE books... so... we are sorta debating now what Herbert said in the 60's... "with this potion I set my mind in motion..."
but I would really dig reading the citation of the people who found the activity of LSD versus smart drugs... kinda cool...
The way this article is phrased, it almost sounds like it was written by Scientologists. You know, those whacky people who claim that giving Ritalin to kids with ADD is dangerous (and, if you pay them enough money, they'll tell you it's part of an evil plot to take over the world.)
Of one of sliders episodes when drugs became mandatory (to control population and enchance human cognition etc) and being clear would be a crime.
America could be heading this way.
I was into the smartdrugs scene back in the mid 1990s. I don't know why this is considered something new. This is as much of a new cultural trend as IRC.
To me, it's amusing to watch the unwashed masses playing catch-up, and claiming they are breaking new territory.
A good friend who shall remain nameless completed his Masters on speed/methamphetamines. As he recalled, everyone was doing it at the time... and this was in the 70s.
This is not new.
I would support establishing a "baseline" level of various hormones for athletes, at the top end of the normal range and well within the margin of safety. Anyone who lacks sufficient natural quantities may enhance them up to but not beyond this baseline. Anyone who naturally exceeds the baseline must have medical documentation produced explaining why, once it is known.
This would NOT be age-dependent -- that is, a 42 year old Roger Clemens would be entitled to 18 year old HGH and T levels, although there's no imaginable way his body would produce these levels on its own.
Also, these athletes should be entitled to their privacy when it comes to short-term "performance enhancers", so long as they are not within their period of active competition. This means that if a football player wants to smoke eight joints (I'm looking at you, Ricky Williams), that's fine -- if it's off-season, or if he's on the Injured Reserve list for the rest of the season. This will have absolutely no effect on the athletic competition, and he should be given the freedom to make this choice. Come August, when the pre-season gets under way, he would be tested for short-term drugs again, so he'd know he had to stop toking a week (or a month depending how heavily he does it) or so before the first pre-season game. Unfortunately, it takes time for the body to clear these things and the testers have no easy way (remember they're testing dozens of people at a time) to distinguish heavy use a week ago from a puff yesterday. If this is your line of business, it's the sacrifice you have to make, but ONLY WHEN YOU'RE IN SEASON.
Also, under reasonable medical circumstances, baseline levels could be exceeded in the case of injury or illness that would be helped by such treatment. There is conflicting evidence of whether HGH helps recovery from injury or not, but if it does it should be established what safe and prudent doses are, and they should be allowed -- but must be reduced back to the baseline levels some time prior to re-entering competition.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I can attest to how effective Provigil is. It does have side effects, though.
Firstly, it really *does* work as advertised -- when I take it, I feel like my IQ has jumped by 20 points. My brain feels like a well-oiled machine. Ideas flow, I work WAY more efficiently and with a much greater degree of focus, I'm wittier in conversation... it really is that good. Even if you've gone 24 hrs without sleep, you can take it and be fully functional. You'll still feel physically tired, but your brain will be humming along just fine. It's pretty remarkable. I would take it daily, if not for the side effects.
That's the good... now the bad. You DO (or at least *I* do) crash, when it wears off. For the first 5 hours everything is fine, but then progressively my brain starts to get foggy and I start to feel a bit dizzy and spaced out. By T+ 7-9 hrs, I'm not doing so great, and I just want to sit or lie down someplace and veg. The drug has a long half life, so even though I'm feeling more and more tired as the evening progresses, I do have dificulty falling asleep that night, and when I do sleep, my sleep is crappy. Even the following day (if I haven't taken more), I'm sort of out of it and I'm still feeling foggy. The day after THAT, everything is back to normal.
If not for the side effects, it really would be a miracle drug. As it stands, I take it only when I really have to (important deadline for work, etc.), & often I'll just take 1/2 or 1/4 of a pill.
Disclaimers: YMMV, and in general I seem to be more sensitive than average to any drug I take...
It's telling that all your examples are from decades ago.
But then again, simply capitalizing the term "White" is enough to get you marked Troll or Flamebait here, while a PC non-argument is enough to get you modded insightful. Yay slashdot.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I agree. You should not do things to gain an unfair advantage for a competition. That;s why taking steroids is outlawed in professional sports. They should also outlaw eating right and getting exercise and practicing because those things also give an unfair advantage! Pro football games should be played by dumpy looking bald guys who spend their time on the couch in front of the TV like the rest of us!!
Beta blockers is a drug used by people who need to perform and handle their nerves. Its used by pasients with hart related diseases. As a side effect for healthy people it will help you to maitain your motoric controll even though you are extremly nervous. This is old news anyway.
One view is that an individual has the freedom/right to ingest any chemical,
....probably ;?)
substance, "dopant", etc, to affect their own mind. (Usually pursuant to the
idea that they do not adversely effect others in the process). One you can assume
I agree with.
However, a number of questions are raised, and not all are to be answered by the
idea of individual moral freedom. The question of fair vs unfair advantage between
competing individuals, might be an example.
Let's consider a contrived example.
A new mind drug called Computex, or CTex for short, is released to the market.
It is found to enhance the ability in humans to perform basic mental arithmetic,
and carries no known side-effects.
Now consider two students, both of whom are just about to start an elementary maths exam.
At the top of the paper it states very clearly that calculators of any kind are prohibited
for the first part of the test.
But let's say Student A does infact use a calculator, whereas Student B does not.
However, Student B *does* use CTex.
Do we count Student A as a cheat? or should we count them both? what if we relax the condition of using a calculator?
etc, etc...
So then, does it come down to the usual questions of natural vs "artificial" advantage (private vs public school debate anyone?),
agreement vs disagreement on what constitutes social contract? the old arguments of centralist theory vs libertarianism?
Then why do hispanics treat themselves as "oppressed brown people" whenever they want to pull the race card?
Unlike the anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and blood-oxygen boosters that plague athletic competitions, the brain drugs haven't provoked similar outrage. People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.
That quote constitutes excellent evidence that you can improve mental performance without actually making people any smarter. Do you think that Barry Bonds connects with that pitch because of steroids? His eye for reading the pitch is as great a natural gift as any natural gift possessed by any poker player. What the steroids do is allow his body to exploit his natural gifts more fully, at a more advanced age than was previously possible.
Ben Johnson had an explosively quick reaction to the starting gun, which had nothing to do with steroids.
False Start Rules May Slow Athletes Down
What would the attitude toward steroids be if a steroid was discovered with far fewer negative side effects? What athlete couldn't claim more complete exploitation of their "hard earned skills"?
Consider the XY karyotype Spanish hurdler Maria Patino who was disqualified in 1985 for not being a woman, despite having a genetic androgen insensitivity (which I presume means that even if she took steroids, it would have no useful effect).
Indeed, there are at least two well-known American movie stars who are XY women, according to researchers in sex differences, although neither of the actresses wishes her condition to be made public.
Careful what you wish for. Some hyper-feminine women are a genetic dead end. This is fair in Hollywood, but not in sports?
Now let's suppose we discover that some males are endowed with a suppressed genetic response to steroids that leads to the negative side effects of roid rage and liver disorder. Should these males, who can take large doses of steroids safely, be allowed to take these drugs? Or not, because other men can't? What exactly are we trying to prove here? Shouldn't the winners win, and the losers lose? Is any sporting event won in this era by an individual who was born with genetic assets that the rest of the population lacks?
One of the consequences of taking steroids is that they allow the athlete to train "their hard earned skills" harder and longer. Of course, the athlete might wear their cartilage to a nubbin by the age of 30, but what's to stop the athlete from having that replaced with the latest miracle Teflon?
Let's suppose a "memory" drug is invented. How does that work? You can memorize an encyclopedia by the age of 25, but by the age of 30 you can't remember what you had for lunch yesterday, because "all circuits are busy"? Maybe this side effect isn't discovered until twenty years later, as the first generation just-add-water-and-stir "geniuses" are never heard from again as they can neither find their car keys nor their cell phones.
There's an age old adage in sport that if you aren't cheating you aren't trying hard enough. What modern competition will become is a battle to have your particular advantage, stimulant, or beneficial genetic abnormality declared competition legal, while your competitor's advantages are restricted.
Our athletes are already groomed more like dancers and supermodels. With improved genetic testing, we'll be able to identify the superior individual (with respect to rules we are concurrently politicking to establish) at a preschool age. Defects in knees or bone structure can be repaired while the child is young enough to rebound quickly. Endorsement defects can be repaired with cosmetic surgery. Competitive drive can be supplanted with neurological enhancers.
And for what? Why do we worship Tiger Woods to begin with? What has he ever done for me, or anyone else here? I personally feel the human race wo
The article is about using psychotropics like amphetamines and methylphenidate (Ritalin) to "improve" brain power. In the short term they do. Then they bring on rebound effects like chronic depression. Continuing after that stresses the dopamine system (that these force to work harder) and can bring on Parkinson's. The Alzheimer's drug does the same, but they consider the long term drawbacks to be less than the immediate benefit. Using these drugs for the purpose stated in TFA is called "off-label use". This (mis-)use has been going on since the first stimulants (cocaine among them) became available over a century ago. These are performance enhancers, not true cognitive enhancers. The distinction is important, and there but buried in TFA.
From TFA:
> "Whatever company comes out with the first memory pill is going to put Viagra to shame," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe.
The first company to come out with a memory pill (a true cognitive enhancer) was Sandoz of Switzerland. The name is Hydergine. The person who discovered it was Albert Hoffman. If he hadn't also discovered LSD and become (in)famous for that, he'd probably been nominated for a Nobel for Hydergine (and a bucket full of other highly useful drugs of his day). He mentioned he takes Hydergine 4 or 5 times a day -- at his 100th birthday party.
There have been many such drugs (nootropics; noh'-oh-troh''-pics) created since then. All of them are owned by companies that are owned by people not from the U.S. and so no U.S. companies can make profit from them. Thus, the FDA won't approve them, and pretend they don't exist. As evidence I point to recent Nobel recipient Eric Kandel (for his work on the dopamine system) who claimed he'd use his award money to create the first cognitive enhancing drug (nootropic), essentially publicly and purposefully ignoring Hoffman's discovery and the subsequent inventions.
On my way to a PhD in neuroscience, I got a master's in healthcare administration. I learned way too much about the FDA and big pharma to ever be comfortable with them again. The above statement is only one reason for that. An excuse given for not approving it is that it can cause one to become dizzy if they stand up fast. In other words, it's an effective anti-hypertensive -- it lowers blood pressure. That's more a benefit than a drawback, and is more harmless than the "acceptable" side effects from recent drugs being advertised. Hydergine and the other nootropics have far fewer negative side effects than most drugs and virtually no interaction with any other drugs, and have beneficial side effects besides. These are approved in part by the FDA, but only for advanced brain degenerative diseases, where their benefit is fairly negligible and unrecognizable. Use by those without such disease is not approved, and actively discouraged.
The good news is that due to the 1989 AIDS drug law, one can import from overseas 90 days worth at a time of any drug approved there for the on-label use. The bad news is that the USPS will try to confiscate any drugs coming from outside the US -- even those allowed by the 1989 AIDS law. This is due to pressure from the FDA, the corporate welfare office for big pharma.
I myself took Hydergine and Nootropil for 2 years, instead of the levodopa prescribed for Parkinson's. After that I no longer needed the levodopa (and still don't, a decade later), which itself has a rebound effect, causing permanent and progressive degeneration of motor control. If it weren't for these nootropics I probably would never have been able to finish my PhD. They cost me about $150 per 90 days, sent from Portugal. I consider that to be the best value for money spent in my entire life.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Can we please cut the ethical implication posts and have some how-to guides and risk/benefit lists?
I'm afraid I don't have any experience in the field myself.
I have been wondering lately whether recreational use of nicotine patches would work.
exactly. me too. I'm trying to be into healthy lifestyle, good diet, exercise, plenty of sleep. And I'm interested in the possibilities of enhancement via milder/safer stuff like vitamins/herbs etc. nootropics... instead it's an advertisement for the sanctioned amphetamine drug dealers. I'm all for trying to achieve better performance but from what I've seen out of amphetamines they are not really good for you.
... and long ago one of my friends had an interesting book on nootropics called Smart Drugs, here's a link to v2: Smart Drugs v2.
:)
I'll drop this link for fun, this site had something on it about brain enhancing supplements: Grasshopper Enterprises
I'm really surprised there's not more posts about this stuff. Like recommended reading, and talk about what others have experimented with. Maybe it works really well and they're guarding their secrets from increased competition? I ordered a few things while I was in school and I thought it was overpriced crap. Did me no good AFAIK. But I also think I had bigger issues with diet, eating, sleeping, depression, etc at the time. Maybe amphetamines could have helped me, or maybe that would have been the final push over into the abyss. I don't know
Are you actually suggesting that there is no difference between homebrewed meth chock-full of delicious impurities taken in massive abuse doses and standardized, tested drug doses prescribed after research proves efficacy? Meth users *do* get wonderful lesions and lose their teeth. Kids taking ADHD drugs don't, unless they're inhaling their pills at many times the prescribed dosage and not sleeping for days at a time.
It's no different than painkillers-- the right dose helps people in pain. Too much taken chronically is addictive drug abuse. It's not difficult to see the difference.
There is no such thing as a "natural" state. We're all under the influence of hundreds of compounds that alter our performance, perception, and potential... most of which are in our food. There is no baseline state at which we can equalize people in order to compare them, and it's a silly idea anyway.
Pills do not make you smarter. To the extent that pills allow your brain to function better, that's a good thing. Use the difference to ADVANCE HUMANITY.
(Want to perform better than 80% of your peers? Sleep well and eat a solid breakfast. Is that cheating?)
Ever heard of Sonia Gandhi?
commrade. They are only cheating themselves. When they cheat me in Counter Strike, they become dependant on the cheats so that when they are without cheats, they are even weaker than before they started cheating!
If they want to cheat me with memory using drugs, they will have to suffer the downer of those and be weaker again in the long term at least. Plus, there is always raw nature on your side: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacopa_monniera - Bacopa Monnieri
or PIRACETAM:
Code Product Quantity Price/Ea. Total
Pirac_PR Piracetam - 800 mg - 60 caps 2 $16.95 $33.90
Shipping: Airmail-2: $15.00
Sales Tax: $0.00
Total: $48.90
But don't fool yourself. We are all cheats in some way. Just don't lower yourself to cheat for your own selfish self promotion, self satisfaction - that's a lie.
Be honest about with yourself and others that you're a cheat. Just to live life, we find numerous different ways to cheat. Investment in assets so that their value may increase in the future is a form of cheating. If you DO lower yourself to cheat DO be honest about it.
Really, this is all going to have to come full circle in the end if we are to get out of this.
From the wiki: Similarly Aboriginal people also seem to have lived a long time in the same environment as the now extinct Australian megafauna, stories of which are preserved in the oral culture of many Aboriginal groups (see Waugal, Rainbow Serpent and Bunyip). The recent European scientific belief that it was the arrival of the Australian Aboriginal people on the continent, and their introduction of fire-stick farming, that was responsible for these extinctions
Surprised I haven't seen any mention of kava. In the western Pacific it is used as a very light social stimulant and sometimes even as a complete replacement for alcohol. Said to have a very mild sedating effect with light euphoria and talkativeness. I've read some studies from around the web which have even suggested that kava might be a suitable replacement for antidepressant medications which lacks the usual side effects and dependency. (Word of warning: I also read this drug has contraindications against certain kinds of brain drugs, so do your own research first!) The only known serious side effect is liver damage, but further research indicates that this only results in poorly-harvested kava which includes the aerial parts of the plant; traditionally, kava is prepared using only the root which doesn't seem to contain the liver toxins present in other parts of the plant.
I've not tried it myself, but I've got a batch on the way. According to reports on Erowid, the effect is very subtle and is more like a gentle nudge in the right direction as far as thinking clearly and without anxiety. Sounds right up my alley, personally.
I mentioned nothing about driving animals extinct (which white man has done as well). They did, however, manage to live quite comfortably in Australia for 40,000 years whereas Australians have difficulty living here in only a fraction of that time.
Some scientists credibly attribute the extinction of the Woolly Mammoth, the North American Camel, and most other large ungulates of pre-historical North America - to over-hunting... by tribes who wouldn't have known who Spaniards (or Vikings) were, because this was waaaay before the likes of Ur, Babylon, and Egypt, let alone Rome, Spain, Danish warlords, etc.
Point is, as a species we excel at making things miserable for everyone else. That said, Global Warming existed long before there were dinosaurs, let alone humans.
Damn... please don't let yourself be so easily fooled by the likes of media and "non-profit political action" orgs... we as a species suck, and modern, current civilization is (until a better alternative arrives) IMHO the least sucky of the bunch, in spite of sucking pretty hard anyway.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
These are both valid points. People vote for someone who they believe will respect their beliefs; this means that they are more likely to vote for someone of their own race, religion, system of ethics, etc.
Someone has already brought up the Belgian Congo, South African apartheid, etc in another response. These are dated examples, and I don't know of any that are more recent.
From the GP:
Can anyone supply a recent example of Blacks and Hispanics being mistreated in the US that 1. isn't an isolated incident involving a handful of people (or less), 2. doesn't involve illegal immigrants, and 3. doesn't apply to Whites as well?
Excellent.. now I can pwn without being busted for botting in UT2004.
I have been taking very large doses of various vitamin B's (100mg+ of B6, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, etc)and 1000mg of vitamin C somewhat regularly for nearly forty years. A family physician prescribed these for me at about age ten to counter ADD type symptoms. I don't know how they stack up against modern ADD drugs. I do know I long ago found the B vitamins vastly superior over amphetamines over the long haul.
Back in the seventies amphetamines with street names like black beauties, yellow jackets and speckled pups were everywhere. I can attest to the dramatic positive effects these drugs have on ones short term abilities. I can also attest to the negative effects with longer term regular use. Mis/Overuse them and they will act to severely degrade your abilities and simply make you nuts or at least that was my experience and what had I seen in those around me. And of course the drop of abilities is precipitous when you come down, expect to lose several times the gain for several times the time you were 'up'. As a smoker and coffee/tea drinker I can also of course tell you that these these have similar short and long term effects and consequences though of course not as severe or pronounced. Though I am convinced nicotine is the most addictive drug I have personally encountered.
I have a job that requires I often have to keep several fast paced crisis type of events and longer term projects in the air much of the time, and coordinate conflicts between the differing agendas and deadlines. It is also a job that requires extreme focus on technical issues often with several suits breathing down my neck. Needless to say both short term and learned memory plus mental clarity are important to me. Damn1 I am underpaid!
I can tell if I have been off the vitamin B complex for several days or so, I get slow or thick in my mental abilities. The recovery is pretty quick, a daily dose and a few hours sleep and I am mostly back on track, in few days all is very clear again. I have tried various items like ginko, ginsing and melatonin, and I have seen some clearly positive effects especially with ginko, but none that compare to vitamin B. Like many other children of the 60's and 70's I had some limited experience with other items I won't go into here in depth. While some of these encounters defiantly affect my id or world views even today, none had the dramatic short term AND positive/harmless long term effect of vitamins on my information retention and mental clarity.
I don't know how they work or if they work as well o others. It could very well be that they address a deficiency of my system that is not common to most folks. I tend to think that other stuff like nicotine, caffeine and various legal and illegal drugs many be so attractive to many people because they address a similar physical deficiency.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
You are right about the influence of millions of dollars. Lao Tzu would agree with you. One of the verses in Tao te Ching cautions against, "Holding up that which is hard to attain." because doing so will engender competetion and people going to extremes to oppose each other to attain it. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. Despite being nearly 1000 years old the insights it presents into life are timeless.
You are confusing Hispanic for Mestizo. They are not the same.
Sure...though people often seem to prefer to explain these things away--- even when the government can't.
Study: Wealth doesn't stop minority loan bias
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19699330/
Feds to probe discriminatory home loans
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959937/
Funny ? Seemed obvious to me. And you forgot that sugar is a "mind doper" too, especially in the white variety we use to "flavor" our coffee. It has "mind-altering" influences, just ask any parent what it does to their kids.
Rimmer: What's this? Learning drugs? They're illegal, matey. Where did you get them? I'm afraid you're in very serious, grave, deep trouble, Lister. Where did you get them? I want names, I want places, I want dates.
Lister: Arnold Rimmer, his locker, this morning.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
As a former pharmacist, I will point out that all drugs have side effects. The user and gerneral population should want to know about them. I am in no way disapproving of the use of drugs, just the abuse of drugs. Our society has for many years been in the throws of a "drug scare". I would like everyone interested to look at these links to help form a well rounded opinion. http://www.peele.net/ http://www.schaler.net/addictionisachoice/index.html
They who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. B.Fkln
The inhabitants of Easter Island (the one with with those large stone faces) cut down all the trees on the island, destroying their environment and dooming their civilization. It is silly to think that only Western culture can be environmentally reckless--there are many counterexamples. Remember that the "aboriginal" people in Australia and America were thousands of years behind the Old World, technologically. They didn't have the ability to drastically alter their environments. Eventually, they would have gained such technology, and would have followed the pattern every other animal (yes, humans are animals) follows--consume until the environment can no longer support the population.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Piracetam and vinpocetine are just unverified dietary supplements.
Adrafinil is fancy caffiene.
Methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin, is primarily used for people with ADHD or in ordinary individuals who have sleeping and fatigue disorders.
If you are healthy (which after that cocktail you may be sitting with quite an over active heart) might I suggest in all manner of kindness, you might find better results if you not work like a maniac and instead devote an hour of overtime to excercise and healthy eating. You may find that all those pills are just an expensive placebo.
Now that I think about it, that second part of your comment seems more sarcastic than I had thought...
Nihilism means nothing to the dancing peasants
I have been studying these drugs a lot. Adderall has much more severe side effects than the ones they list. It has been linked to schizophrenia and suicides. In fact, once you are on it, it will be VERY hard to stop. It takes up to two years for brain to restore after amphetamine (what Adderall essentially is) usage. People who take these ADHD drugs are much more likely to become heroine or cocaine addicts.
So the guy made two million dollars thanks to Adderall? I wonder why it did not work for military pilots who took Adderall-like drugs. And why it did not work for all those people who ended up in mental hospitals after trying to stop Adderall?
Conclusion: so they are hiding side effects from you, are telling you "take this pill, make a fortune". The whole article seems to be sponsored by the Adderall maker.
You don't need a drug to become immune to celebrity. Just get rid of your TV. Perhaps more like going off one drug than on another. I've been without a TV for over 5 years, and it's one of the 3 best things I've done in my life. And to answer the inevitable questions: no movies, videogames or YouTube either. Your time on this earth is a gift from $DIETY, and you spend it watching other people's lives?
--Pete
Yup, I take kava occasionally. Kinda gives a relaxed concentration; sorta removes impeding anxiety and improves focus - makes things a little clearer. My g/f takes it once in a while for depression. Side effects include numb lips, and in larger doses, drowsiness & slightly slurred speech (makes your tongue numb). I'll sometimes mix a tablespoon of kava into my coffee - best of both worlds.
As for liver toxicity, the best reports I've read seemed to confirm what OP says; you'd also need to take quite a lot of it over a prolonged period of time. To be extra safe, I avoid drinking alcohol for a few hours before & after. As with anything else you put in your body, purchasing from a reputable, trustworthy source is essential - I buy mine at natural food stores. Note that kava root is not water-soluble - you'll want it in powder form (ie, you can't brew tea).
Other mind-altering natural remedies I'm fond of (all of these are legal). I usually brew infusions:
- catnip - yup, the same plant you give to your cat. Good for anxiety, depression & digestion.
- chamomile - anxiety, insomnia
- skullcap - anxiety, improves focus.
- valerian - severe anxiety & insomnia. Quite a bit stronger, smells terrible
- exercise - probably anathema to most Slashdotters, but regular exercise will do wonders for your mental state.
Yes, I'm a tense little bugger, if you couldn't tell.In general, I've found folk/natural remedies to be "just right" - more like a nudge as the OP says, and nowhere near as potent as lab drugs, with minimal side effects. People have been using plants as medicine for thousands of years. This book is a fantastic guide on such things - includes lots of references to scientific papers too.
Posted anonymously so that when the State decides to outlaw some of these at the prompting of Big Pharma, they've got less evidence against me.
It seems to me that other than a few cases where there is a detectable clinical problem such as Alzheimer's, stroke, or some other circulatory problem, the effectiveness of most of the 'mind doping' drugs suggests that the real problem is a crappy 'lifestyle'.
The big favorites are provigil (on-lable use is for narcolepsy) and amphetamine like stimulants (originally of interest to the military to combat mental performance loss due to prolonged wakefulness).
Could it be that the real problem is that people are sleep deprived? Perhaps an equal positive effect could be had by turning the alarm clock off and going to bed at a decent hour so you don't need a jarring buzz to wake up in the morning? Personally, I find that that is a BIG booster for my mental sharpness. When, for various reasons, I must operate on short sleep, I get exactly the sort of mental fog that people claim these drugs lift for them.
Factor in that there is a known correlation between mood disorders such as bipolar and depression and poor 'sleep hygene' and that depression seems to be on the rise in the west and chronic socially mediated sleep deprivation starts to look like a worthwhile theory.
It's at least strong enough that people using mental performance boosting drugs might want to try stopping them, getting more sleep on a better schedule, and seeing how they do after a washout period. The benefits include being much cheaper and having a much lower risk profile.
I suspect there's not a lot of research interest here for several reasons. For one, there's not much profit in telling people to go to bed. For another, managers don't want to give up "is his butt in the seat at 8A.M. sharp" as a metric of performance even though it's a really poor metric of performance or value in the first place. Certainly they don't want chronic sleep deprivation to become a diagnosable occupational disease or (god forbid) have shorter work hours become a legitimate public health discussion. Finally, it flies in the face of the work hard all day, party all night, never take a vacation, sleep is slacking mentality.
But there are other theories, theories that the anthropology community tend to find more plausible. One of them is that the trees were killed off by western introduced diseases, not the natives cutting them down to move big stone heads around.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.