Is Non-Prescription ADHD Medication Use Ever Ethical?

derekmead writes "College students' voracious appetite for study drugs like Adderall is widespread enough that it was one of the main topics of a marquee lecture on neuroethics at Society for Neuroscience's 2012 conference called 'The Impact of Neuroscience on Society: The Neuroethics of "Smart Drugs."' It was excellent stuff by Barbara Sahakian, faculty at Department of Psychicatry at the University of Cambridge. Her focus is on prescription drugs for diseases and conditions like Alzheimer's, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression, with the fundamental goal of understanding the neural basis of dysfunction to develop better drugs. Specifically, she wants to create drugs with no risk for substance abuse which means drugs that have no effect on dopamine. The true goal then of her research, fundamentally and briefly, is to repair the impaired. But doing so brings us to the discussion of how much repair is ethical when the repair can be disseminated to people who don't actually need it. Divisions abound on what is to be done. Some experts say that if people can boost their abilities to make up for what mother nature didn't give them, what's wrong with that? Others say that people shouldn't be using these drugs because they're designed for people with serious problems who really need help. So another question for the ethicists is whether cognitive enhancers will ultimately level the playing field or juice the opposing team."

Comments

Is this different from sport?

[styrotech]

Some experts say that if people can boost their abilities to make up for what mother nature didn't give them, what's wrong with that?

Just like steroids in sports right?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[plover]

No, it's not nearly the same thing as steroids in sports today. Steroids are used to gain an advantage in an playing field kept as level as possible through external rules and a large suite of referees watching every move, in order to maximize the entertainment value. But this is about life, where the playing field is never level, the rules are far more vague, and enforcement all but non-existent.

In school, the idea is that these drugs improve your grades. But that might mean you remember "more", or somehow end up "smarter" than you would have otherwise. You might go be a more productive member of society. What if these drugs make the difference, enhancing someone enough to recognize a novel cure for some horrible disease, or design a new class of CPUs, or a new energy source?

Many of us spend our livelihoods trying to enhance human knowledge and experience and abilities through improved software. Hell, half of us would sign up today for an internet implant chip. What's wrong with improving the wetware directly?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[TBBle]

The difference presumably being that in sport, you're playing within a specific and arbitrary set of limitations, one of which is currently held to be a limitation on artificial enhancement. Same as you're not allowed to to trip your competitors up in a foot-race.

If you're actually doing stuff where you're not being measured in some sort of specific playing field or situation, why not be able to do what its necessary (and non-harmful) to do that as well as possible.

I'm not required to listen to the same music as my colleagues, or drink coffee when I work, after all. We're not trying to level the playing field, we're all trying to individually excel so that our group as a whole excels.

This is the strawman in the final comment: "So another question for the ethicists is whether cognitive enhancers will ultimately level the playing field or juice the opposing team". Who's my opposing team? Am I required to only work as well as... who? And if so, then... why? Why would I only be allowed to do my job as well as someone else could?

The implicit idea seems to be that there's those who're sub-normal, for whom it's alright to make them normal (be fixed), and then those who're super-normal, who're just lucky and aren't allowed to be made any better (be enhanced).

I haven't read the article yet, so these questions may already have been answered.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be probably be flipping burgers if it weren't for unpresecribed Adderall.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[king neckbeard]

Sport are pretty much competitive by definition. There are personal goals and improvements, but the core concern is whether one person or group is better or worse than another person or group. Wins and Losses are zero sum. Having more or more capable doctors, engineers, and scientists doesn't entail a loss, so the concerns are very different. If those same people will have shorter lifetimes or careers because of these drugs or other adverse effects, then there is a need for a balancing act. However, the balance would be the positive effects versus the negative effects, both for the individual and society. These concerns apply regardless of what is considered normal. People with ADHD severe enough to harm their functional abilities may have negative effects from Aderall that outweigh their costs. However, people that are already above average on productivity may get a net benefit from Aderall.

Perhaps a better analogy would be vitamins. Someone in good health without any nutritional deficiencies might benefit from vitamins, and we wouldn't see a problem with that.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[plover]

Why add the "non-harmful" qualifier to your list? Does it really devalue society as a whole if you voluntarily undergo a "Flowers for Algernon" enhancement like Charlie?

If someone could take a pill that they knew would enable them to develop the cure for breast cancer, but also knew it would kill them in a month, don't you think we'd have had thousands of volunteers already?

Or what if I cut off my perfectly good left arm and had a titanium cyber-arm implanted instead? Is that harmful or non-harmful?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you are assistant manager?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[ColdWetDog]

I'd be probably be flipping burgers if it weren't for unpresecribed Adderall.

Instead, you're posting on Slashdot.

I submit that this indeed is the crux of the issue. One road leads to productive citizenship, the other to a wasted, debauched life. You are the poster child for the evils of drug use.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Your.Master]

I just assumed he meant not harming 3rd parties.

That said, it does get tricky with self-harmful things that could potentially become so prevalent that they are essentially required. That sort of situation is what sparked the early labour movements.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the same. Those people use drugs to improve their grades over their competitors grades. They hope to get into better graduate school because of that and into better jobs too.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Artifakt]

The zero sum vrs positive sum outcome certainly makes a difference ethically. I'd add a few other differences between sports and 'real life' to the list.
1. It is possible to enforce a rule such as no doping in sports - organizations exist which have legal power to compel testing. What's the organization that could compel testing in all colleges worldwide, or similarly level the playing field? For example, if some organization were created in the US with the goal of testing all college students, is there any real chance they could get legal authority to test all private colleges? Would the US government revise H1B visa status so legal aliens only held employable status if the schools in their country of origin had let the organization test them too?.
2. In sports, there is a consensus that is, if not universal, at least pretty widely held, about just what is ethical. Not only are the people doing this speculation right that there isn't a similar consensus in the wider world (which they seem to admit), but look at the areas of lack of consensus. In particular, what about war? If we could get an actual consensus about what was ethical in the way of enhancing combat troops, why have we been unable to get everyone to sign onto a Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty, or the Geneva convention, and then abide by such rules? If we could get a consensus about medical ethics, why doesn't every nation in the world adopt the same rules about expiramental drug treatments or hospice care or assisted suicide? If we could get a consensus about economic ethics, why did practically the whole world have to fight a 60 year long cold war to a rather ambiguous conclusion (yeah, yeah, the ruskies gave up. And I suppose Vietnam was a US victory that helped that process along, the PRC is solidly capitalist now, and there's no problem (as the US usually sees it) with Chile, Cuba, or half of south and central America, and we can all be confident that the US economy will weather continued cold war spending practices, in the new perpetual war which isn't happening because once the Commies couldn't dominate the middle east, the whole ME turned solidly capitalist). People are going to apply drugs that may or may not enhance their abilties to war, health, and money if there aren't tremendous reasons not to.
          Speculating about applying any sort of standard ethical code to this delemma is like speculating what would happen if about 8,000 years of human history didn't all seem to disagree with your basic premises and pigs came with built in turboprops. Unless you've invented a way to get the alerons to stick to the pig tail, no one should believe you can tackle giving the pig enough depth perception to use them, and the speculators are talking like the remaining obstacles are down to seat pricing algorythms and picking a nice color for the carpet in the pig's cabin.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[mdfst13]

There's also the problem that we may not know all the side effects. For example, amphetamines in general cause an increase in heart rate. For that reason, Adderall is not recommended for someone who has cardiac issues. Could long term use of Adderall (past high school and college) cause cardiac issues? We simply don't know. If you take Adderall for twenty years and then have to stop, is your mental acuity going to be degraded relative to what it would have been if you had never taken Adderall? Again, we don't know.

Another question is if Adderall actually helps people who do not have ADHD. This would require a real double blind study to be reasonably sure. Has anyone done one? Or are doctors simply prescribing in the hope that this will work? Anecdotally observed beneficial effects could be caused by a placebo effect or by selective memory (improvements are ascribed to the drug while those who stay the same or get worse are just viewed as bad candidates).

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're implying that school is somehow a competition. It is not. School is about learning.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[girlintraining]

What's wrong with improving the wetware directly?

Your brain isn't a computer. You can't just upgrade the processor and it works 20% faster from that point on, but otherwise does the exact same stuff. Anytime you tweak something in a brain, any brain, you're making a tradeoff. You're getting one thing by giving up another. Millions of years of evolution have figured out the most efficient way to balance survival, intelligence, and metabolic conservation. You start tweaking that on your own, and while you might get something you want, and may not notice a downside right away -- eventually, one will become apparent. And it could be irreversible.

There was a drug used to treat anxiety a number of years ago... and it's still on the market... and some patients who were taking it had their symptoms re-appear (shaking, nervous facial tics, etc.)... so the doctors thought the underlying pathology had worsened and increased the dose. And this went on for several years -- the dose levels creeping slowly upwards to combat the apparently chronic and worsening underlying disease. And then one day, someone noticed a correlation: For this subset of patients, the drug was simultaniously the cause of, and the cure for, muscle twitching. And when the patients were taken off the drug, the symptoms were unbearable to watch... they'd flop about like a fish out of water. As it turns out, the drug turned what had been a mild problem into a permanent and severe neurological condition.

So the next time you get the notion in your head that tweaking your brain with chemicals, wires, magnets, or whatever else you happen to read about: Remember the law of unintended consequences. In biology, there is always a price to pay. Every evolutionary step is a tradeoff. Every. Single. One.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[i]

More like money as everywhere else in the society - with the difference that this is availible to more people.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[symbolset]

Fully actualized humans alter their brain and body chemistry all the time. Astronauts do it. Fighter pilots do it. Doctors do it. Athletes do it.

The problem comes when people who aren't fully actualized do it. They are't able to discriminate between productive and unproductive use. They become dependent, and atavistic.

How do we protect them from themselves without giving up the powerful benefits chemistry gives the rest of us? Should there be some sort of test? And who to administer it? Doctors are proven unworthy of this responsibility. Lawyers and their judge kin were never even suspected of being capable for so important a role.

The answer is obvious. Actualized people know that rules are for others. Fully actualized people can handle the responsibility themselves. For the semi-actualized there are Darwin and the criminal justice systems. Life can be cruel that way. It is in our nature to o'erreach our grasp.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[symbolset]

Science has come finally to the point where some of these drugs can improve your ability to remember and think. How is that not fair?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[wonkey_monkey]

Fully actualized humans

Meaning what, exactly?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Roger W Moore]

Millions of years of evolution have figured out the most efficient way to balance survival, intelligence, and metabolic conservation.

True but the environment that they have optimised us for is the one that we were in during the Stone Age. Evolution is great at optimising but very slow to adapt to changes which is why we are so successful as a species: our intelligence lets us adapt far faster than evolution.
That being said, while I have no objection in principle to intelligence enhancing medication, in reality the problem is that while the short term effects can be easily determined the long term effects are far harder to figure out. So, just like sport, you do not want to end up with people being forced to take drugs to compete which may have deleterious long term effects.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Coeurderoy]

Fully actualized humans

Meaning what, exactly?

It's a cool club, and for a small 10% of your present, past and future income, YOU can join the actualized HEROES club at the armadillo level.
The first step on many other cool levels with funky names, and ever growing source of feeling of superiority!!

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Coeurderoy]

It should be, in practice it's becoming a place where smart private companies auction off magic pieces of paper called "diploma" that demonstrate your membership of some fancy/shmansy semi private club.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Coeurderoy]

I wish we'd admire students, but it's not supposed to be a sacrifice, it's supposed to be what you want to do!, not because you'll become a well paid sob, but because you think that what you're studying is actually interesting.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[evil_aaronm]

Fuck "fair." I want to perform at the absolute best of my abilities. If drugs make me "smarter," or more observant, or "clear the cobwebs" out of the way so I can remember the words I want to use, as I get older, I'll fucking sledgehammer anyone who says I shouldn't be allowed. My god, we should be pursuing the elective use of these drugs to get the most out of each and every one of us, like in the movie "Unlimited." Why let these magnificent brains go to waste?

The drawback is, like steroids, side effects. Do we really know what happens, in the long term, to our brains, the more we ingest these drugs? Personally, fuck it - I don't care. I already know that I have only so many days here in this existence. However, while I'm here, I want to perform as best I can, even if it means I cut short my existence by 10 to 20 percent. I'm willing to pay that price. More better drugs, please...

Re:Is this different from sport?

[bickerdyke]

What's wrong with improving the wetware directly?

Your brain isn't a computer. You can't just upgrade the processor and it works 20% faster from that point on, but otherwise does the exact same stuff.

Why not stick with that analogy... Your brain is the CPU that's soldered into the iPhone of your body. if it's damaged, you wasted your body and live. You may be able to overclock it by 20% with drugs - but did you remember to improve the cooling by... well.. how many percent is save? You only have one try.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Coeurderoy]

One issue would be : is your diploma valid without the "enhancement drugs you took" ?
In some drivers licences there is a note: only valid if the driver is wearing his or her glasses.

If I needed an attention focusing drug to get my IT diploma, should I be forced to write this in my resume ?
My prospective employer should be able to expect a level of performance somewhat defined by my diploma, especially if I'm a beginner.

And if the drug I'm using pans out to transform me in a raving maniac after 10 years of use, would an employer be justified in firing me because:
- I hired you in an "enhanced state", and this will stop sometime close in the future, so you're not the "product as advertised anymore..."

Re:Is this different from sport?

[mwvdlee]

It's a term used to decribe personal superiority in lieu of actual superiority. Hence "actualized", as opposed to "actual".

Re:Is this different from sport?

[mwvdlee]

That should be "personal believe in superiority".

Re:Is this different from sport?

[AmiMoJo]

There are two issues with allowing performance enhancing drug use in education.

Not everyone can afford it. Are we going to help those who can't out by subsidising their medication? The argument could be made that having a poor memory or being a slow learner is a medical condition that merits treatment. Generally speaking we try to make the playing field fair for everyone at school, giving them all an equal opportunity.

The other problem is that it will create two classes of student: those who dope and those who don't. These drugs have side effects and not everyone wants to be medicated.

Personally I'd definitely use this stuff if it were available.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[getuid()]

Many of us spend our livelihoods trying to enhance human knowledge and experience and abilities through improved software. Hell, half of us would sign up today for an internet implant chip. What's wrong with improving the wetware directly?

The rules are different, but the problems are the same as in sports with steroids. They start to arise when us others, who for various reasons don't want sign up for "improving the wetware directly", don't have any possibility of leaving normal lives anymore. You want super-powers. That's fine. But first move our society away from competitive living to just living. Take away the "winner takes it all" mentality, so you can have your drugs while I won't have mine.

Why? Because "winning" defined as who's better at "enhance human knowledge and expirience and abilities", "being smarter", "be productive", recognize a novel cure for disease" is just as random as "being a better entertainer at sports" -- life, as we live it, is still a game with a relatively level playing field imposed by society. The ruleset may be a lot more complex than sports, but still it has it's own rules and enforcements. Otherwise, in the absence of rules and enforcement, what would stop me from killing your drug-pumped, better-graded child, in order for my clean, very smart, but slightly less-performant kid to have a chance for University later on, too?

Now, we can argue whether society is such a good concept to have or not, but this is a different debate. At any rate, as long as we have one, we need to make sure that every member of society has a decent chance, not only those who would readily put their long-term health at risk for being more productive. (How much "productive" do you actually need, really, that cannot be archived otherwise? And for what, exactly?)

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Lando]

Sorry but what?
      As far as I know brain workings are still experimental, but you are saying that there always has to be a negative along with a positive. That somehow doesn't sound correct, in fact it sounds more like intelligent design than evolution. Evolution isn't smart, it just randomly affects things, some things work, some don't it doesn't have a mind to "balance" anything. Saying that there has to be a trade off for getting the mind to operate better, is the same as saying, we shouldn't cure cancer because people will just die of something else. Or even, we shouldn't educate people because we will suppress their own natural intelligence.

As to the main article, personally I couldn't care less if others are able to make themselves smarter, having more people smarter than me would be a boon. I assume the article is trying to say that norms shouldn't be taking drugs because it gives them an unfair advantage, but I would think the only people that would care about that are those that want to compete with others and probably unfairly. I don't care if John is smarter than me, if he is more productive, doesn't that help me in the long run?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[HJED]

Steroids in sport are baned because of the negative side effects (thing such as roid rage), the real question is do these medications have negative side effects (especially ones that are detrimental to society) if the answer is yes (and I would assume it is, but don't know for certain) than these drugs should definatly be baned for none medical purposes (the same way steroids are).
If the answers no then it becomes a bit more uncertain, personaly I would lean towards yes but would be woried about the creation of a segragated society between those who took the drugs and those that couldn't (think GATAGA), ultimatly this is a simlar issue to human GM and one that society is going to have to resolve fast.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[HJED]

In Australia school is in some ways a competition (at least if you want to go to uni). We have a national ranking system called an ATAR, the ATAR is a rank based on the results of everyone in Australia who took their year 12 exams in the same year as you and it is the primary decider for which uni courses you are eligible to get into.
That being said it is also about learning as well. ;)

Re:Is this different from sport?

[ExploHD]

ADHD medications don't actually improve your ability to remember and think. They allow the taker to concentrate on the task at hand, without the brain going onto different topics because of key words. Think of the recent Microsoft Bing commercial where two people are talk, then one of the people starts talking about a different subject because of a word. Then other people start talking about other things and before long it turns to chaos. That's what it is like to have ADHD, but in your brain.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Maudib]

Why should they be banned? Why can't you simply make the information available and allow individuals decide what is best for them? Why does anyone get to dictate to anyone else what they can put in their bodies?

Stop moralizing over non issues. Simple criteria. If someones decision to do something with their own body does not cause significant DIRECT harm to another person, then it is only up to the individual in question to decide. The consequences of the choice are theirs as well.

Everyone would get along so much better id we all just learned to mind our own business.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Maudib]

Then don't take the drugs. The fact that some people have different priorities is no reason to limit another person's freedom.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Maudib]

Only one way to find out though.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Fred Ferrigno]

Millions of years of evolution have figured out the most efficient way to balance survival, intelligence, and metabolic conservation.

It's just not the case that evolution always leads to an optimal design. Evolution has a tendency to get stuck on "pretty good" solutions because some random decision early on limited the future solution space.

It's also not true that evolution is somehow finished with humans, having already figured out how to squeeze every ounce of efficiency from our brains. We are not the end product of evolution. For all we know, future generations may have more efficient brains than we have.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully actualized humans alter their brain and body chemistry all the time. Astronauts do it. Fighter pilots do it. Doctors do it. Athletes do it.

The problem comes when people who aren't fully actualized do it. They are't able to discriminate between productive and unproductive use. They become dependent, and atavistic.

You realise you're coming across sounding like a Scientologist?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[wonkey_monkey]

-1 Smug (actually -2 for using "o'erreach" previously)

Maybe I'm just so actualized that I don't need to bother with ill-defined psychobabble to enable my life script and keep myself from declining into a shame spiral.

Actualized people know that rules are for others.

Ah! Psychopaths.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Adam Appel]

I think every combat soldier we (USA) have should be being doped as part of their readiness program. Controlled of course like all medications for risk factors, abuse, etc.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[nospam007]

"Fuck "fair." "

Exactly! First comes the feeding, then the ethics.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention it ignores the reality of today's society, which we are playing musical chairs based on brains and more and more don't have a seat when the music stops.

This is why, even if they get a breakthrough with something like this, i think capitalism is gonna die just like every other ism throughout history, why? because in the end you are only gonna need a handful of truly gifted people and the rest will be replaced by the machines.

And the reason why capitalism must fall is the breakthrough of technology finally making the man worthless like in the tale of John Henry leaves a few at the very top, those with the means to buy the machines of production, with wealth the likes of which kings never saw before while large masses of the populace will be left with nothing. What good is a system based on trading your labor for capital if your labor is no longer required?

Unless you want to start going to dark places like eugenics and forced sterilization the simple fact is we could wipe out half the people on this planet tomorrow and not only would the standard of living not go down, it would go up quite a lot for those left because they might actually have a demand for their labor.

As it is now, what do you do with those large masses of people with 100 IQs or less? Pay them to do nothing? Make up jobs that aren't truly needed, as we do now? Get a job at Walmart and one of the training videos they show you is how to apply for federal aid, because your labor is only worth having if the feds subsidize you. think they couldn't replace most of their workers with machines? heck you could replace the majority of Mickey D's employees with an automated assembly line and it would work just as well, only thanks to government subsidies of the workers its cheaper to hire the poor.

So I really can't blame a kid for taking this, the entire world has become IQ musical chairs and if you fail to get a seat your life will be dead end jobs and grinding poverty. Of course the flip side of this is just as you know how college educated are living with their parents because they can't find a decent job, imagine what would happen if the IQ of the general pop suddenly went to 150 as the baseline? It certainly wouldn't create any more jobs, it would most likely mean the corps would just start looking for people with even higher IQs, again its just IQ musical chairs for the shrinking number of jobs that aren't done by the machines and eventually we'll probably all lose.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[HJED]

From my original post:

do these medications have negative side effects (especially ones that are detrimental to society)

Direct harm is not the only harm to be considered, you must also consider if this will cause the person to become psychotic or a threat to others (such as the case with drink driving or steroids) or if this will prevent other people with out the drugs from competing and thus forcing everyone to experience the negative effects (which could cause significant damage to society). You also have to consider if it causes strain on public health services (such as smoking does) or if it is going to be forced on minors, or minors taking it without understanding the consequences (such as some cases of alcohol abuse).
With sport the idea that they are supposed to be role models also comes into play, but that isn't present in this case.
Besides all that there's the possibility of a GATAGA like society, which is also a possible problem (depending on you're perspective).

Re:Is this different from sport?

[RivenAleem]

tl;dr

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem with steroids in sports is not that is gives some people a competitive advantage over those who don't use them. The problem with steroids in sports is that there are negative consequences to using them. The same is true here. There is only a problem with people using these cognitive enhancers if there is a long term negative side effect. Steroids are used in medicine in cases where the short-term benefits to health outweigh the long term negative consequences (which are generally relatively minimal since they are only used for short periods of time).

Re:Is this different from sport?

[garaged]

I dont know what you are smoking, but I have lived in a very competitive environment most of my adult life and I have seen very few taking anything for the sake of productivity, people is healtier than you think, at least here in Mexico.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[TBBle]

I did indeed mean to 3rd parties. I was trying to rule out suggesting, e.g., that killing those who hinder you is appropriate merely because it's necessary for you to achieve your optimal outcome.

That way lies super-villainy, or so cartoons have shown me, anyway.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[mwvdlee]

It wasn't a correction, rather a clarification. Sadly to no avail.
Although I gather the point would have been lost regardless.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[TBBle]

You were hired because you best convinced the people reviewing and interviewing you that you were the right fit for the job. Whether you woke up extra early to be fresh for the interview, wore a pressed suit, or took attention-focussing drugs with breakfast, ideally you're being judged not just on how well you showed up that day, but how well your history appears to fit their requirements.

You can certainly make an extra effort to get a job that you don't intend to make once you have a job. That could just as easily mean no longer shaving as it could mean no longer buying the appropriate smart-pills. The smart-pills are not the problem here, they're merely another tool in an already-well equipped box. If you fall below the requirements of the job after starting, then that's what the probation period (or performance reviews, later) is for.

Of course, if a company insists on judging all its hirees by one particular metric that can be temporarily enhanced to secure a job, then they may have a problem. But the problem is not the temporary enhancement...

It sounds like you think the other team is "people who do the things necessary to secure that job". I'm not sure that job-hunting is or should be a level playing field, and it's not really a 'team competition' so much as 'every person for himself or herself'. The idea being to find the best people, not "the best people if you eliminate certain variables".

I don't see what foreign workers have to do with anything, that looks like a furphy to me, and I'm going to ignore it, because it also smells like an opportunity for a completely different disagreement.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[jenningsthecat]

I'd be probably be flipping burgers if it weren't for unpresecribed Adderall.

Instead, you're posting on Slashdot.

I submit that this indeed is the crux of the issue. One road leads to productive citizenship, the other to a wasted, debauched life. You are the poster child for the evils of drug use.

If I had points left I'd mod you up as Funny! I have no idea why you were modded 'Troll' - I guess a few people here forgot to take their humour pills...

Re:Is this different from sport?

[DarkOx]

The problem is our society is structured around the idea that opportunity is basically equal so results are up to the individual; with the caveat that some people do get dealt a bad hand are born with (significant) disabilities, or are badly injured in childhood before they can be reasonably accountable for their own safety and actions. I am going to infer from the philosophy behind your argument you like me believe that outside some allowances for the above; the most justice society we humans can manage happens we don't focus on outcomes.

The problem we are now faced with, and this is new, is that there are these technologies emerging that at least have the potential to reliably confer abilities on individuals far beyond ranges of natures bell curve. Where there always outliers sure, but what if I have a drug that could turn *any* child into the next Niels Bohr?

Most people feel social mobility is a good thing; and that neither the sins nor virtue of the father should necessarily pass to the son. Leftists argue this already happens, rich parents mean their children go to better schools and therefore have an advantage through their entire lives. I think the reasonable and correct argument to this is that such advantages are what you make of them, and everyone is offered minimally adequate opportunity to succeed if they are sufficiently determined.

While the same is true for these drugs today we are approaching a situation where some of these technologies have the potential to elevate those with access to degrees beyond where anyone else could hope to compete. Who gets access to these technologies may not be determined by their own virtue but by that of those who came before them, and that might really be "unfair". I don't have all the answers and I don't like many that others have offered but it is something we need to start to think about.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[chill]

Isn't that one of the examples given by "Q" in ST:TNG on the trial of humanity? :-)

Re:Is this different from sport?

[RobertLTux]

it the problem of high performance always has a price. Okay so you used Thinkrin(TM) to boost your brain by 20% so now what??

Where is the 20% going to come from??

Look at Every Single Star in various Fields and then count the number of them that

1 Did not die either well or of Old Age
2 are severely CRACKED
3 have bodies that are a wreck (for Fields that include a lot of Physical Stuff)
4 landed up adding their pharmacists to the Christmas list just because DAH DRUGS became very important

sure overclock your brain by 20% but don't be surprised when in 10 years you land up thinking that FaceBook Games are the best thing ever (or whatever NetFad replaces FB)

Re:Is this different from sport?

[chthon]

You should read up on control theory. Brains form a whole lot of feedback loops. One of the things in feedback loops is that when the amplification is increased, unstability issues pop up.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[confusedwiseman]

"Fuck "fair." "

Exactly! First comes the feeding, then the ethics.

Unfair doesn't have to be unethical. There are several different colleges, some better than others. These also vary by cost. My parents may have helped with the cost of the college where another student's parents did not. This is clearly unfair, but not unethical.
If everything had to be "fair", then wouldn't a countries resources have to be be equally distributed to all people that live there? I couldn't even say citizens of the country, as that would be unfair to the non-citizens that live there. Now, for the rhetorical part of this, doesn't this make it unfair to take more money from one person than another to insure that it's fair for everyone? E.g. professional skills/labor pay more/contribute more than unskilled labor.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[tgibbs]

Actually, according to the data presented in the lecture, the drugs improve short term memory as well

Re:Is this different from sport?

[betterunixthanunix]

Millions of years of evolution have figured out the most efficient way to balance survival, intelligence, and metabolic conservation

Except that we do not live in jungles, where we needed to be able to very quickly divert our attention from creating termite-harvesting tools to running away from a predator. In today's world, we need to be able to focus on a single task for extended periods of time; in other words, we need (or we are expected) to do things that we did not evolve to do.

You start tweaking that on your own, and while you might get something you want, and may not notice a downside right away -- eventually, one will become apparent. And it could be irreversible.

Amphetamine is a well-studied drug, having been used and observed for many generations now (it was, in fact, first synthesized more than a century ago). In large doses, all drugs in the amphetamine family (including the constituents of Adderall) can cause brain damage. In therapeutic doses (~10mg Adderall), however, brain damage is not known to occur (if this sounds like a shocking concept -- that high doses cause brain damage and low doses are safe -- then perhaps you should think about the different between drinking a single beer and dying of alcohol poisoning).

So the next time you get the notion in your head that tweaking your brain with chemicals

You will probably get this notion while walking past Starbucks. Why pretend that pharmaceuticals are the only drugs that can improve your cognitive performance? Caffeine and nicotine are also used to improve productivity, both are available OTC, and both can be home-grown.

Every evolutionary step is a tradeoff. Every. Single. One.

People use drugs to overcome those tradeoffs. You feel pain when a scalpel cuts your flesh, because that is what your body evolved to do; that's why anesthetics are used. Do you think that people should just bite down on a piece of wood during surgery?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Rob the Bold]

Fully actualized humans alter their brain and body chemistry all the time.

. . .

So what are you on, and didn't your teacher tell you to bring enough for everyone?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Rob the Bold]

. . . I guess a few people here forgot to take their humour pills...

Wouldn't that be giving them an unfair advantage?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget an additional -1:smug for this gem:

How do we protect them from themselves

Re:Is this different from sport?

[F34nor]

In addition you would all do well to remember that 1/2 of the world is dumber than average and most of us have so little attention span... anyone want to go ride bikes?
The real question is why shouldn't we have the FREEDOM to do whatever the fuck we want to?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[watice]

Agreed, but that's a pretty basic suggestion to make. I'm not sure I know a single person that randomly takes medication without knowing side effects. In adderall's case, knowing my blood pressure is just fine, cholesterol is low, and being in my late 20's I feel pretty safe and confident that the trade-off is something I'm more than willing to take.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Qualifiers:
1. wonkey_monkey, I think you're last assessment is spot-on about the OP
2. I have never taken, and likely will never take "smart drugs"

            But the grain of truth around which the egotist above wrapped his twisted little world seems worth examining. (Fuck "actualized") "Goal oriented" people do make considerable changes to their chemistry and personal physics to achieve their goals. Some of these are not healthy long term, e.g. ask any retired marathoner how his knees feel on a cold day. And yet they are quite acceptable. So where do we draw the line on self alteration? We clearly don't ban marathons even though the rest of us pick up the tab for the injuries. We don't ban Tatoos or ear peircings, which have no positive medical benefit and are prone to infections at the time the damage is done.

                So jumping ahead and merging with our original "drugs" thread: Should doctors be able to prescribe short term performance enhancing drugs for use by people whose goals are not sports. If I'm going to work Search & Rescue two weekends a month and need "real" stimulants to stay on my game for a 24 hour hike through the tundra, should that be allowed? What if I need a drug to go on a 15 hour deep water cave dive to fight the effects of nitrogen narcosis.

                    Where do you draw the line?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[nairnr]

Roid rage much? Drugs haven't affected you at all I see. Or you are just an asshole...

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Lando]

You've lost me there. I'm not sure that I trust any theory at the moment as far as brain responses go, but I'm willing to examine new data if you have a few articles on the matter that you care to post I'll read them.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[tchall]

Sports are artificial constructs in which the players agree to a set of rules... real life isn't a sport.

As others have pointed out, what if that person's concentration results in world improving discoveries or the next amazing invention?

I'll take it a bit further...

Why should ANYONE who is an adult be subjected to regulation about anything they choose to do to their own body/mind?

Whether or not you are "medically trained" just being a slashdot member I'm fairly certain that you yourself research effects, side effects, dosages, and contraindications as well as anyone else?

I'll admit that I'm Darwinian enough to want warning labels taken off of things that any idiot ought to realize they need to use carefully and/or read up on before trying...

But warning labels or not... isn't any risk taken assumed by the person making the final decision(s) on what to do?

Putting laws between people and their own bodies is Bad Government... Laws ought to cover ACTIONS that affect others.

DUI and "public intoxication" are illegal... so much so that diabetics have been shot with Tasers for not responding to police appropriately (at least in the officer's estimation)

We've got the social and public results under control... or at least we've got "available" the means of enforcing acceptable behavior in public.

We've even got excessive laws that allow one's private behavior to be intruded on and punished no matter how little it affects others...

Somewhere we've given up our autonomy for some set of social mores to which we might not subscribe at all... imposed on us by those most interested in gaining power over others...

Today's disastrous effects of violating the standards of "Political Correctness" in the workplace are a prime example of that power... Where the mere misspeaking of one's opinion using the "wrong" word can end a career... (sorry, I'm not perfect and sometimes the "right" word escapes me when I'm in a passionate discussion)

Further, we can't determine a person's exact "state of mind" with any real certainty so why are some crimes "worse" because of what someone thinks?

It is quite possible that there are adults among us that don't need a Nanny State to guide us in our daily lives, including whether we chose to use Adderall to enhance our ability to concentrate or steroids to give us an energy boost... (assuming we're not contracting with others to refrain from either practice...)

/rant off: OK, now I'll got and take MY meds... 8)

Re:Is this different from sport?

[RabidReindeer]

Some experts say that if people can boost their abilities to make up for what mother nature didn't give them, what's wrong with that?

Just like steroids in sports right?

Let's all go down to the ballpark and watch the mutants play!

Re:Is this different from sport?

[RabidReindeer]

Now you are assistant manager?

Instead of CEO. Where ADHD is considered an asset.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[RabidReindeer]

Fully actualized humans alter their brain and body chemistry all the time.

. . .

So what are you on, and didn't your teacher tell you to bring enough for everyone?

I'm on caffeine. And they can make their own damn coffee. And turn the pot off so I don't have to scrape it out!

Re:Is this different from sport?

[curunir]

The main difference between steroids and other PEDs would be the side-effects. PEDs typically improve physical performance at the cost of health later in life. If they were magic bullets that weren't harmful, we could all take them and be better off for it. For sheer entertainment value, juiced-up athletes are probably more entertaining to watch, but we ban PEDs because we don't want to force athletes to choose between an immediate performance (and salary) boost and their post-career health.

The same dilemma could present itself in this arena too. Imagine if they found a drug that massively increased intelligence and problem solving enabling users to discover and produce advancements well beyond what our minds are capable of. That sounds great and many of us would love to try something like that, but imagine if it also was found to be linked to severe depression and a drastically-increased suicide rate after ~5-10 years of use. So...do you take it and have a brief, spectacular and achievement-filled decade?

That's the dilemma facing athletes when it comes to PEDs. While the goal from the article was to develop drugs free from side-effects, there's no guarantee that that a drug developed would meet that criteria.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Maudib]

A psychotic threat is an indirect harm, and the bar would have to be pretty high to justify banning something on that basis. It would have to be at least as likely and damaging as alcoholism.

"or if this will prevent other people with out the drugs from competing and thus forcing everyone to experience the negative effects (which could cause significant damage to society)"

No. We should never ever consider this. We should never prevent an individual (not talking about corps/trusts) from being successful in life because it would be unfair to other people. We need the hyper successful outliers taking risks and driving society further.

By your logic we should criminalize internet connections faster then the slowest commonly available.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[yurtinus]

And turn the pot off so I don't have to scrape it out!

God I hate this, and I rarely even drink coffee! I've lost track of how many times I walk through the break room in the late after noon and the burner's still running on some smelly brown goo at the bottom of the pots.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[yurtinus]

He must have gotten the point. Actually I'm pretty sure he made the point before you ever thought of it - this guy is actualized.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[SecurityGuy]

This is plausible sounding nonsense. Evolution does not mean we're at the absolute pinnacle of anything, or on some pareto frontier. It's entirely possible, if not likely, if not darned near certain that we're not considering the evolutionary pressures that created us operated largely on us in an environment that doesn't exist anymore. Bear in mind, evolution doesn't care if you're happy, if you live a long time, or if you're a productive member of society. Evolution cares if you produce more copies of yourself. That is the definition of evolutionary success. Millions of years of evolution have figured out millions of ways to balance survival, intelligence, and metabolic conservation that are good enough not to die off yet. They're not optimal, they just work well enough. When they don't, they die out. We are, after all, not evolved, but evolving. I might buy your claim for species like crocodiles that haven't changed in a hundred million years or so, but it's also possible they just occupy a local maximum. They never evolve into anything "better" because all the pathways lead through something "worse".

You're right that humans are fantastically complicated machines, and it's absolutely possible that improving one function may have unintended consequences, including unintended consequences that outweigh the improvement. But is there no way to ever simply improve the machine without any negative effect? I don't buy it. Show me the data. I strongly believe with our current medical knowledge, that's unprovable.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[AK Marc]

If it's not a competition, why are so many things directly competitive? The curve, class rank, and extracurriculars are all directly competitive.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Mashdar]

There is little evidence that using Adderall, etc, actually improves academic performance. The few studies whcih have been done actually correlate worse academic performance with unprescribed stimulant use. Perhaps you could argue that it is the weaker students using them to begin with. PDF Warning (see page 8 for correlative overview): http://mss3.libraries.rutgers.edu/dlr/outputds.php?pid=rutgers-lib:38417&mime=application/pdf&ds=PDF-1 There is a growing body of evidence that those who do benefit may actually be self-medicating undiagnosed attention defficit symptoms: http://jad.sagepub.com/content/15/4/263.short http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15433714.2010.525402

Re:Is this different from sport?

[mcgrew]

True but the environment that they have optimised us for is the one that we were in during the Stone Age.

That's the predominant view, but I don't think it's accurate. Six to eight thousand years ago when agriculture was developed, people had an evolutionary fear of cats (and some still do). But cats eat the mice that eat the grain, and we now have a symbiotic relationship with them. Why does a cat's purr make one smile? Evolution.

And even closer in time, Europeans developed a tolerance for lactose. Evolution doesn't stop.

So, just like sport, you do not want to end up with people being forced to take drugs to compete which may have deleterious long term effects.

Sports themselves have deleterious long term effects. Just look at Muhammad Ali, or any American football player, and even European football. Work has deleterious long term effects; carcinogens and other toxins in the workplace, etc.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[SnapShot]

It's interesting that you bring up smoking. I, as an ex-smoker, have believed for a long time that adult ADHD drugs, for some people, fills the niche that smoking, before it became socially unacceptable, used to fill. I would love a minor, stimulating alternative to coffee so long as it didn't become the addiction that smoking used to be.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Rhacman]

The smoke is what lets you know it's time to make more coffee. Remember to let glass carafes cool before rinsing them or they shatter. You can try rinsing out the tar if you like but odds are the cinders aren't going anywhere. On a related topic, don't let the coffee drinkers see what the inside of the empty carafe looks like, it ruins the suspension of disbelief. With these hints in mind you are ready to make a pot of office coffee that will get the staff through one. more. day.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[geekoid]

" Someone in good health without any nutritional deficiencies might benefit from vitamins, "
they don't. It's pretty well known.

"and we wouldn't see a problem with that."
people taking vitamins they don't need? I have a problem with that. A number of problems , in fact.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[geekoid]

"Is that harmful or non-harmful?"
very, very harmful.
That's my stance and I'm not changing...until I get my own cybernetic arm!

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Macgrrl]

Could you possibly found anything more offensive to say?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[TheRealMindChild]

Honestly sir, you sound already hooked. Please get help. http://www.na.org/ is a good start.

It's no different than being hooked on crack. It "clears the cobwebs" and makes you more "observant".

Anyone reading this and taking it seriously, ADHD drugs work by exciting a slower, out of sync bit of the brain so it can speed up and coordinate (frontal lobe dysfunction and reduced capacity, with a correlation to reduced size, of the left sided pre-frontal cortex) . If you use these drugs and don't have these complications, it is speeding up a bit of your brain that was already doing fine, throwing it out of sync. This obviously isn't better. It is better like you bowling better when you have a few beers. It isn't the beers, and really, you aren't doing better. You just feel better doing it, which may attribute to being more successful when initially abusing the drug.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[bkk_diesel]

Assistant to the manager.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[ExploHD]

It doesn't help a person WITHOUT ADHD to think any better, that is the key difference. ADHD medications will just make a regular person hyper, not focused.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[HJED]

That wasn't my argument at all, my argument is that if such drugs do have negative side effects (ie. strongly detrimental effects on a persons health) they should not be pressured into taking them in order to compete as this would result in the majority of people having to commit what amounts to self harm (and when it is the majority it is detrimental to society)

Re:Is this different from sport?

[evil_aaronm]

Misunderstand much? We're talking about drugs that improve mental ability, that make us smarter, that allow us to transcend mere humanity. Perhaps you're comfy at whatever level you're at. Fine, be my guest. But, imagine a "normal" guy taking a pill and becoming a Hawking. Now imagine a Hawking taking a pill and becoming... what? You'd deny that? On what grounds? Why do you hate humanity that you would deny us such great and amazing insights? The cure for cancer. Manageable social reforms. More effective deep space exploration. Better energy production. Whatever. The answers are out there: someone just has to think of them. Give me something that can boost my brain to the next level, and I'll gladly take it so I can help solve those problems.

In the meantime, I don't take drugs - except caffeine - but, yes, I'm an asshole, just like everyone else, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Lando]

Okay,
    So how does that differ from a chinese worker or a robot taking jobs? Trying to hold back technology because of the fear of what it may do is self defeating in the long and probably short run. Currently, education, connections, money all contribute to an unfair job market anyway. Those that are in "secure" positions don't want to rock the boat, yadda, yadda yadda.

The truth is that eventually something will give and we'll see things work out for the betterment of everyone and not just a few. For those that are interested in pursuing a sharper mind, more productivity, more insight, I say go for it. Like another poster said, we don't know where our next invention is coming from and personally I'm all for clearing the way for innovation which includes helping those that innovate any way possible.

I don't really think these drugs will help those that don't put the time forth to become better by training their minds to learn. I think the good ol' boy network will do it's best to keep these folks down, but eventually someone will recognize those that take their brains seriously and hire them. Look at Google and it's PhD program. Too many times in computer science those that have a master's degree are more highly sought than those with PhD's. It's like folks don't recognize the effort behind going the extra yard, or for some reason don't want it. Inferiority complex? I don't know but Google seems to have done well so far valuing those that value their minds/education. Once people see an effect they will all probably jump on the drug bandwagon, but they won't have the mental skills that it takes so the checkbox for doing drugs will be as meaningless as it is now.

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Anguirel]

I dont know what you are smoking, but I have lived in a very competitive environment most of my adult life and I have seen very few taking anything for the sake of productivity

Really? No one drinks coffee or takes other forms of caffeine regularly around you?

Re:Is this different from sport?

[Roger W Moore]

Why does a cat's purr make one smile? Evolution.

No, intelligence. We have learnt that small cats are not to be feared and can be useful so people have learnt to accept them. To be certain you'd need to do studies to confirm whether people can learn to like cats. If people can learn to like - or accept - cats then your argument for evolution immediately goes away since evolution would not be able to distinguish between those people who favoured cats by natural inclination vs. those who realized they were useful and so kept them despite not having a natural inclination for them. Hence, if we assume that someone can learn to accept cats, then either intelligence was the only factor or if evolution played a role then cat-lovers should be less intelligent on average compared to those who don't like cats because even "stupid" cat-lovers would still have cats and survive.

Sports themselves have deleterious long term effects.

So does living - we are talking here about a comparison. Taking drugs will introduce additional, unknown risks whether or not the sport is inherently dangerous.

drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Rings

[circletimessquare]

in the short term, it gives you superpowers. in the long term, it turns you into a soulless ghoul

that's right, i just said the lord of the rings is a parable about drug addiction

Leveling the playing field?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of Vonnegut's story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

We don't need a prohibition on drugs. We need better drugs. When fully-informed people choose to take drugs, we should let them.

or,

[Ralph Spoilsport]

it's just another way for the pharmaceutical industry to remove money from your wallet. Perhaps ADHD is just a reasonable and rational response to a completely insane world of hyper-focus. Perhaps we should all be chasing buffalo and living in tipis because, it's better. Maybe depression is a correct response to a world gone mad - a civilisation hell bent of murdering the biosphere. Maybe mental health, isn't.

Re:or,

[cplusplus]

Your comment is quite interesting to think about.

Re:or,

[Dasuraga]

As someone who has had to deal with ADD for his entire life , I can assure you that it is not just a pharmaceutical ploy. I can barely write this sentence , and I have already been distracted three times. When I was in middle school, I was prescribed Adderall to deal with my ADD, and my concentration capabilities shot up immensely (going from 90 minutes to do math homework to 10). In high school I stopped taking it, and forgot mainly about it ( I moved to a different country at the time, and was having problems with the language and culture).

Now in the "real" world, I realise how handicapping this affliction is, where I'll take an hour to write a 2-sentence e-mail, and where I can't read through a research paper without taking a break every 2 minutes. Unfourtunately I now live in a country where Adderall is illegal, and the country I lived in before doesn't recognize ADD/ADHD in adults. There are people with worse problems, but it's still extremely frustrating to have the attention span of a goldfish.

As an aside, the best way I've found to deal with the problem is to say things out loud as I do them, I think that somehow the speech centers of the brain help with concentration (though I still tune out quite frequently in conversations). I'm less than comfortable about doing that with my coworkers though.

Re:or,

[antifoidulus]

I know this is /. where saying "pharma evil!" automatically gets you mod points, but do you seriously have any fucking clue what you are talking about, or are you being self-righteous to be self-righteous? Many of the drugs available for ADD are available in generic form(including the Adderall mentioned in TFA) meaning that the amount of money the pharmaceutical industry makes off of it isn't nearly as big as you make it out to be. The drug I take costs less than $1/day, company that makes it probably only makes 10 cents on it, probably even less. So your big conspiracy is that someone is plotting to steal $30 a year from me?

Sorry, I forgot, this is /., "EVERYONE IS EVIL BUT ME, I AM THE ONLY ONE THAT MAKES MONEY IN A MORAL FASHION, BOW BEFORE MY SUPERIORITY!"

Re:or,

[Prune]

Hyperfocus? Have you seen the youth of today? Surely ours is a culture of incessant distraction and infinitesimal attention span. Do you think all but a small fraction of adolescents can keep their mind from wandering while reading but a single sentence of the work of James or Conrad? This trend only continues. Hyperfocus--my ass!

Re:or,

[silentcoder]

Officially, the single most deserving of "insightful" post I have read on slashdot, ever. And I've been here since 1999.
Seriously... I have been tweeting selected quotes from your post for the past 10 minutes... you may have just hit a nail on the head so damn huge that nobody has seen it because it's in the way.

Re:or,

[argStyopa]

I cannot deny your personal experience, but its hard to believe that 'suddenly' the human species - you know, the wealthy, Western ones - desperately needs medication to function at a basic level, as you describe.
Personally, I suspect it has everything to

It may not be a big-pharma ploy precisely, but I think our culture's immediate recourse to a pharmacopia of chemistry is more likely to be attacking the system than forcing us societally to confront the actual causes.

Further, as your story suggests, we are far too quick to dose juveniles whose brain chemistry is changing rapidly and flooded with varying surges of hormones constantly, preventing the kids' systems from learning (as a natural part of maturation) how to deal with their own body chemistry. It essentially leaves them physiologically addicted and constantly needing chemical support for normal function.

Re:or,

[drinkypoo]

When I was in middle school, I was prescribed Adderall to deal with my ADD, and my concentration capabilities shot up immensely

You were prescribed Adderall. You, apparently, are one of the minority diagnosed with ADD who actually has ADD.

However, focus can be learned. Can someone with ADD learn to focus without drugs? I don't know. But I do know that someone can simply never learn to focus, and I suspect they can sometimes seem like they have ADD. I know this, because it has been shown that one can learn to focus better. It's a trainable, learnable skill.

It's a fact that school as we know it was designed to produce obedient soldiers and factory workers. It's also a fact that teachers literally don't have the time to keep up with NCLB. We know that class sizes are well over optimal. We even know that we make kids get up earlier in the morning than is optimal from a physical, chemical standpoint — to prepare them for their eventual factory jobs, which by the way we're exporting or automating as rapidly as possible. If some kids have a hard time paying attention in that environment, it is hardly surprising. I was one of them. I don't consider myself to have ADD, and I doubt I would be diagnosed with same. But all the same, I was a problem child, and today they would almost certainly have medicated me for it, whether it was the best solution for me or not, for their convenience.

Re:or,

[swillden]

I cannot deny your personal experience, but its hard to believe that 'suddenly' the human species - you know, the wealthy, Western ones - desperately needs medication to function at a basic level, as you describe.

It's not the species that has changed, it's the definition of basic level function. A brain that zips all over the place isn't an impediment to someone doing manual labor, as long as it also has the ability to focus intently for short periods when not focusing would be dangerous. For a hunter-gatherer, being easily distracted by any noise or movement can be a survival trait -- it's a good thing to flit quickly from observation to observation, staying with each just long enough to categorize it and determine if a reaction is necessary.

Our environment has changed dramatically over the last few hundred years, in fact it's changed dramatically over the last 50 years. My great-grandparents were farmers. My grandparents did manual labor and operated heavy machinery. My parents worked in offices, but the majority of their work was face-to-face human interaction. I work in an office and the vast bulk of my day is spend reading and writing (e-mail, documentation and code).

Now, that's not to say that there weren't people who did almost nothing but read and write hundreds of years ago, but they were a small, self-selected subset, and there are still a fair number of manual labor jobs today. But the ratios have changed dramatically. While human beings are adaptable generalists as a species, specific individuals do have built-in strengths and weaknesses and to a large degree we "adapt" by finding a niche that fits what we're good at. But as the opportunity ratios have changed -- orders of magnitude faster than any change evolution can keep up with, not to mention the fact that we've largely removed fitness selection as an evolutionary force -- that has become harder for people.

It's not at all unreasonable to think that the next step in adaptation is the application of our intellect to modify the way our bodies and brains function, to better fit the new reality we've created. Such a step is risky, of course, and pretty much guaranteed to include nume

Re:or,

[Cro Magnon]

I know this is /. where saying "pharma evil!" automatically gets you mod points, but do you seriously have any fucking clue what you are talking about, or are you being self-righteous to be self-righteous? Many of the drugs available for ADD are available in generic form(including the Adderall mentioned in TFA) meaning that the amount of money the pharmaceutical industry makes off of it isn't nearly as big as you make it out to be. The drug I take costs less than $1/day, company that makes it probably only makes 10 cents on it, probably even less. So your big conspiracy is that someone is plotting to steal $30 a year from me?

Sorry, I forgot, this is /., "EVERYONE IS EVIL BUT ME, I AM THE ONLY ONE THAT MAKES MONEY IN A MORAL FASHION, BOW BEFORE MY SUPERIORITY!"

Keep in mind that if you multiply that $30 a year by 10 million patients, you're getting into Mitt Romney territory in money. So, yes, it does pay them to have as many people as possible on that stuff.

Re:or,

[HeckRuler]

Hmmm, looking at it that way, the effort we put into adapting to the shift from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to... all of us being bookworms... it seems downright fascist. We're dictating that the majority of the populace has to be a geek. Or at least, we're rewarding those who are, and punishing those who aren't. I understand there are really good reasons, the needs have simply changed. These days we need more geeks then we need spear-throwers. But to encourage a system where we force people to behave a certain way? To change who they fundamentally are? Education is one thing, mind-altering drugs another. There does come a point where the human animal rebels at being changed.

I don't think it would be a good thing if we had a culture where students and professionals were expected to take aderall to stay competitive. That's the sort of thing that's straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel.

And all that said, I'm still tempted to see if it would make me a better coder.

Re:or,

[the gnat]

Can someone with ADD learn to focus without drugs? I don't know.

Some can. I can't take stimulants because they send my blood pressure through the roof (to the point where I feel physically uncomfortable) and tend to result in wild mood swings, especially when I tried taking a day off medication. They certainly did make it much easier to pay attention, though. When I was younger, I smoked cigarettes regularly (just several a day, at most), because nicotine also gave me intense focus. Now I stick to caffeine (which I've been addicted to since I was 15) and much milder drugs like older antidepressants. Some tasks are still a chore for me; if I tried to go back to school now I would probably go insane within a year. But I am far enough along in my career that my tasks are very specialized, and I try to structure my work in such a way that it plays to my strengths and not my weaknesses. Now I can actually work on plane flights, or sitting in airport terminals; when I was in college, I couldn't even read on the plane. Hell, I could barely read in the library.

I don't think this is a solution for everyone; my ADD is probably milder than many. But it is possible to structure your life so that it's a minor irritation rather than a constant obstacle. The problem is that so many careers lead through traditional academic education, where an otherwise intelligent person with ADD can find studying to be constant torture without cognitive enhancement. There are plenty of things I regret doing in college, but I'm still not sure if I could have graduated without coffee and cigarettes keeping my neurons going.

Re:or,

[hey!]

it's just another way for the pharmaceutical industry to remove money from your wallet. Perhaps ADHD is just a reasonable and rational response to a completely insane world of hyper-focus. Perhaps we should all be chasing buffalo and living in tipis because, it's better. Maybe depression is a correct response to a world gone mad - a civilisation hell bent of murdering the biosphere. Maybe mental health, isn't.

No, ADHD is *not* a reaction to hyper-focus. In fact, hyper-focus is one of the problems ADHD *creates*, although it can at times be useful.

ADHD is badly named; it is not a deficit of *attention*, it is an inability to voluntarily *control* attention. Both shifting focus and hyper-focus are examples of the sufferer's lack of voluntary control. When the thing being focused upon is what the sufferer wants to focus on, great. When it's *not* what you want to be working on, then hyper-focus is not so great. The modern atmosphere of mindless rush and continual distraction *exacerbates* the inability to control focus, so it may *look* like a reaction. It's a bit like being poisoned by pollution; because of natural variation the unnatural mental environment becomes toxic to some people sooner. But being the canary in the coal mine is not an adaptation.

Depression is not a reasonable reaction to a world gone mad; a reasonable reaction to a world gone mad is to try to fix the world, to find a place in the world that is less mad, or at least to insulate yourself from the madness. Depression is a disease which cripples the victim's ability to take care of himself even in mundane, day-to-day tasks -- much less in the challenging ones like getting by in a world gone mad.

It is true that a reasonable humane society would make accommodations for people with ADHD or depression, the way it would make accommodations for somebody who suffers from impaired vision or a broken leg. With those accommodations the ADHD sufferer can become fully productive and contributing, and the depressed person can return to full productivity sooner.

Re:or,

[Ralph Spoilsport]

thank you.

Re:or,

[geekoid]

"ADHD is just a reasonable and rational response to a completely insane world of hyper-focus. "
It isn't.

" Maybe depression is a correct response to a world gone mad "
it isn't.

There is plenty of evidence these things have existed forever. Finally have a way to give people actual lives back is a good thing.

The only problem is there is a stupid stigma attached to anything that happens i the brain, becasue to most people, its a magic box'. when in fact it's a chemical factory.

Did you know people use to think the same way about the stomach? It was a magical thing that people attributed all kinds of nonsense to.

Re:or,

[geekoid]

Since the post is neither interesting or accurate, the mod thing isn't working.

Re:or,

[swillden]

Many sci-fi worlds envision a future where each of us carries a personal pharmacy all the time, built into our bodies, with different chemicals added all the time, based to some degree on automated adjustments but with some manual control/overrides. I don't think it's all that unlikely, though it definitely makes me uncomfortable. If you think about it, that's how we already work, with the difference that our pharmacy consists of numerous glands of various sorts which inject different hormones into our bloodstream. Is it really that much of a change to augment that process artificially? I don't know. It feels like it to me, but it may not feel that way to my great grandkids.

Re:or,

[dwye]

Odd. I thought that they would surely have banned you from using the computer anymore, Mr. Kaczynski.

I know a simple solution:

[WilyCoder]

Mandatory drug tests for every single college student in America!
/sarcasm

Re:I know a simple solution:

[Zuriel]

We employ people for industry. Welders, electricians, mechanics, etc. to build or repair mining machinery, among other things. Some work sites do mandatory drug testing.

You wouldn't believe the number of people who back right off when they hear about that. "Would you pass a drug test?" "Oh... I think I'll give that job a miss."

Or, "I don't know, maybe." "Well, are you a regular user?" "Is two or three times a day regular?"

We once had an employee get drug tested and the testers called the test machine's manufacturer because they thought it was broken.

He returned positive results to everything.

Meandering back towards the actual topic: screw smart drugs, it's 2012, where's my neural implants?

Re:I know a simple solution:

[BradleyUffner]

Mandatory drug tests for every single college student in America! /sarcasm

What about the ones who are married or dating?

Re:I know a simple solution:

[Jane Q. Public]

"We employ people for industry. Welders, electricians, mechanics, etc. to build or repair mining machinery, among other things. Some work sites do mandatory drug testing."

I can understand it if you are operating heavy or otherwise dangerous machinery, or you're a bus driver or something. But other jobs? I mean, you have companies out there insisting on pre-employment testing for grocery store boxboys and people who wash and stock produce, or do laundry! And in the computer business? Forget it.

I vowed long ago that I would never take again take a pre-employment drug screening, or agree to random testing. I am sick and tired of this "guilty until proven innocent" bullshit. If I worked for a company and they had GOOD REASON to suspect that I was taking illegal drugs on the job, that would be one thing. But treat me like I'm guilty without any reason or evidence? Hell, no!

And yes, I have passed up several jobs because of this.

I have made one exception since then, but only because the employer convinced me that the parent corporation left them no choice in the matter. Even then I was reluctant.

There is one other exception I am willing to consider. In an office setting, if ANYBODY is going to screw things up by making a drug-addled decision, it's far more likely to be a manager or corporate officer than some clerk or programmer. So my policy is: if the managers will piss in a cup and show me the results (or show me recent past results), I will do the same.

I think that's very fair.

Re:I know a simple solution:

[Chrisq]

We once had an employee get drug tested and the testers called the test machine's manufacturer because they thought it was broken.

He returned positive results to everything.

George W Bush in his missing years?

Re:I know a simple solution:

[maudface]

That's not always why.

I could pass a drug test easy, nothing I do stays in my system longer than 2-3 days, I don't smoke cannabis and never have. I do however take great issue with any employer wanting access to my urine, it's a step into my personal life I'm unwilling to allow them to take.

I can see the logic for testing where you'll be responsible for other peoples lives, but it's not like they ban you from drinking is it? It's inconsistent.

Re:I know a simple solution:

[kiwimate]

If you're talking about a test taken prior to December 1, 1998, perhaps. The cutoff was raised to try and avoid this exact problem (2000 ng/ml for typical workplace tests, 3000 ng/ml for the US Military).

Re:I know a simple solution:

[WilyCoder]

The university will provide free drugs to those who are married.

Re:I know a simple solution:

[HeckRuler]

screw smart drugs, it's 2012, where's my neural implants?

Turns out most people aren't a fan of surgery. So we put it in your pocket. You now have a portable powerful external brain that can memorize anything and everything you throw at it, is near-constantly, near-instantly connected to everyone everywhere, knows where you're at, and who is nearby.
And you can even make calls with it.

Re:I know a simple solution:

[PeanutButterBreath]

"We employ people for industry. Welders, electricians, mechanics, etc. to build or repair mining machinery, among other things. Some work sites do mandatory drug testing."

I can understand it if you are operating heavy or otherwise dangerous machinery, or you're a bus driver or something. But other jobs? I mean, you have companies out there insisting on pre-employment testing for grocery store boxboys and people who wash and stock produce, or do laundry! And in the computer business? Forget it.

Its not just about job competence. Risk-averse employers just don't want any part of any illegal activity. They don't want to read their name in negative press or criminal complaints. They don't want to replace employees on short notice because they OD'd or were thrown in jail. They don't believe that your habit won't contribute to attendance or performance issues, or personality conflicts. They don't trust people who break the law for entertainment.

Re:I know a simple solution:

[geekoid]

"nothing I do stays in my system longer than 2-3 days,"
depends on the test.

Re:I know a simple solution:

[Maxmin]

Drug tests aren't infallible. False positives do occur.

Highly unethical.

[pushing-robot]

I can't imagine a world where perfectly healthy people feel the need to take addictive stimulants just to help them focus throughout the day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Starbucks.

Re:Highly unethical.

[mikael_j]

This discussion and your post make me think back to my teen years in the mid-90's. More specifically my memories of talking to sysadmins and developers who were working back then and the levels of stress and pressure they had compared to what these jobs are like today.

Now, I don't doubt there were plenty of stressful sysadmin jobs back in 1996 or that there weren't a lot of employers keeping track of when their sysadmins arrived for work in the morning back then but it definitely seems to me that back then there was a lot more leeway for sysadmins, developers and others in IT-related jobs. I knew a guy who was just another IT consultant back then, he worked for a company in the same town as the one I lived in and while their office hours were officially 09:00 to 17:00 in practice it wasn't unusual for most of the lights in their offices to still be out by 09:30 simply because people hadn't shown up yet. Missing your regular bus and showing up for work 15 minutes late didn't even seem to register for a lot of these people I knew back then.

By comparison, my first job after college was one where if you knew you'd be ten minutes late to work you were expected to phone ahead to let your boss know or you'd be in for a reprimand (you might still get a reprimand if this happened twice in a week or three or four times over the course of a month). Leaving early wasn't just frowned upon, it was completely out of the question, it was the sort of thing that was considered completely unacceptable.

And looking around at people I know in the industry today it seems this wasn't isolated, these days adherence to schedule and being just another cog in the machine is more important than it used to be.

Did I mention I'd love to have one of those mid-90's jobs where you could show up 20 minutes late and no one would really care because they would just assume you'd make up for it (or that it didn't matter since after all, how important could those 20 minutes in the morning possibly be and we all oversleep from time to time)? Those jobs didn't seem particularly relaxing but at least they were a little less stressful than what we've got now. Oh well, time for some more caffeine and work...

Re:Highly unethical.

[girlintraining]

I can't imagine a world where perfectly healthy people feel the need to take addictive stimulants just to help them focus throughout the day.

You joke, but it's a serious problem. We have the fewest number of vacation days of any industrialized country, poor health care, and many of our poorer citizens work north of 50 hour work-weeks, some with two jobs, others balancing college and a full-time job (and still wind up hundreds of thousands in debt from student loans). We are literally working ourselves to death -- obesity rates are skyrocketing, and the average person consumes 2.25 cans of soda per day. Frankly, it's worse for you than smoking -- each of those cans is 130 calories, and then it amps your metabolism and simultaniously acts as a dieretic so your appetite increases. I read something about how the average American consumes something like 2,800 calories per day. My weight and build puts my daily consumption at around 1,500 calories a day... which means the average person consumes 86% more food than I do. And we pack in the stimulants, along with the pounds. Then to top it off, we don't get enough sleep because of our LCD screens, 26 hours of TV a week... our lifestyles are killing us.

Now, I have severe ADHD. I've been tested repeatedly by neuropsychologists, and there is no question I have it. I have to take it just to keep pace with this "Type A with rabies" culture I live in, and it isn't easy. The side effects aren't terribly pleasant either -- shaking, insomnia, anxiety... I can't understand why someone would want to deal with these effects unless they had to. People, strong stimulants aren't fun. They will give you energy, but at a cost -- the candle that burns twice as fast burns half as long. I have to take it, and it's expensive. And I don't take it on the weekends, or vacation, etc. I take as little as I can functionally get away with.

Please guys, I'm telling this to you as someone with the attention span of -- oh look, a kitty -- life is too short. Don't take medication you don't need. Please. It isn't worth it. You're young, and stupid, and your body can tolerate it now... but you're wearing it out faster, and it's for stupid silly shit that twenty years from now, you won't care about. Stop being obedient slaves and putting in 60 hour work weeks. Stop working yourself into an early grave. Go out, see friends, see family. Leave work in the office... don't take it home.

Drugs without side effects are like unicorns -- they don't exist. They all have risks. I have a cousin right now who's a pain pill junkie. They were prescribed by her doctor. She was told they were safe, and the addiction crept up on her slowly. Now, she's on parole for five years after getting so doped up she didn't know her head from her ass -- all on legally prescribed drugs at the doses prescribed by competent physicians -- and she did something stupid. And the thing is, she got out and went right back to doing it. Stimulants do the same thing to some people -- everyone has their drug of choice. Everyone. Not everyone has found it yet.

Now I'm not against recreational drugs; It's your choice. And if tomorrow they decided to hand out bottles of Adderall and Ritalin next to the aspirin, I wouldn't complain. It's your life, it's your body, it's your choice. But please people, think. Think long and hard about whether finishing that TPS report is really worth the extra minutes off your life, the high blood pressure, the sleepless nights, and the cold sweat when you're so amped you feel like there's a strange presence in the room with you, watching. Just ask yourself that. Choose well.

Re:Highly unethical.

[zazzel]

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Starbucks.

The active ingredient in Starbucks' products being sugar, not caffeine?

Re:Highly unethical.

[Lando]

Selective memory more than likely. There are plenty of jobs that don't focus on time stamps today, I'd say even more than used to be. That being said, the talent pool for computer jobs has expanded so I assume there are more people to fill those positions so some places might be more stringent than they used to be.

IBM definitely has gone the other way, where they used to have a strict dress code and time requirements, that has relaxed significantly over the last 20-30 years. AT&T is a totally different company where some divisions are more strict and others less so than they used to be. Other companies I know of are hit and miss. Without doing a full research project and without numbers from years gone by, I think your impression is more based on the jobs you see around you than the market as a whole. Perhaps someone somewhere has done this research, but I haven't seen anything mentioned.

Re:Highly unethical.

[oodaloop]

Sugar is non-addictive and absent in most drinks. So, no. If you take yours with it, good for you.

Re:Highly unethical.

[Dodgy G33za]

Maybe you are working in the wrong country.

My experience in Australia is pretty much your impression of the 90's - unless you are working for a small company owned by the boss with their mortgage on the line. Or a body shop like Accenture that likes to work their minions into the ground.

It might just be the effect of the GFC - with everyone afraid of losing their jobs - we haven't had a recession over here so their isn't the same level of fear.

Re:Highly unethical.

[borcharc]

Caffeine is an incredibly powerful stimulant but most people are so accustom to it, they have no idea and will not believe its powers. I recently quit drinking caffeine after my whole life of 6-12 cans of cola a day, I noticed no effects from the drug (so i thought). After I quit, my sleep and mood dramatically improved. Then one day I accidentally had a caffeinated soda without thinking about it, I was so fucking high that I had to go home and lye down for a bit until the effects wore off. The effects were far more powerful then adderall. If you don't believe me, quit for two weeks. The headaches from withdraw aren't that bad, your totally not addicted anyway, right?

So yeah, as far as I can tell, most people in are already taking addictive stimulants just to help them focus throughout the day.

Re:Highly unethical.

[jittles]

You joke, but it's a serious problem. We have the fewest number of vacation days of any industrialized country, poor health care, and many of our poorer citizens work north of 50 hour work-weeks, some with two jobs, others balancing college and a full-time job (and still wind up hundreds of thousands in debt from student loans).

I have no sympathy for someone with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. I started paying my own way at 16, and I worked 30+ hours a week and took 19+ units a semester so that I could finish school as quickly and as inexpensively as possible (my school charged based on full-time/half-time status, not per class). I ended up only working 10 hours a week my last year so that I could take 23 units per semester and finish early. I took out some student loans to help make ends meet during that year, but I could pay them off tomorrow if I had any incentive to do so (3% APR on a low balance loan, can deduct 100% of the interest and I have other expenses to worry about). A girlfriend of mine wanted me to go to the same private school as her. I got accepted, and when I saw what my financial aid options were like (I didn't get anything anywhere because I wasn't legally emancipated as a minor), I told the school no thank you and went somewhere I could afford. No one sticks a gun to your head and says you have to go to Embry Riddle, Harvard, Stanford, or some other insanely expensive school. If you walk away from school with more loans than your career can support then you should have taken a personal finance class while you were in school.

I also think this Adderall business is asinine. It IS exactly like competitive sports. School is very competitive. People compete for scholarships and all sorts of other things, such as internships, etc. They are mostly GPA based. If everyone is taking these "performance enhancing drugs" then there will be pressure for other students to do as well.

Re:Highly unethical.

[Rich0]

I have no sympathy for someone with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans.

I do. You take some 18 year old kid who has absolutely no idea of the value of money or how hard it is to get a professional job, and you ask them to make a $100k+ financial decision, while showing them TV sitcoms with a bunch of college educated 30-year-olds having fun in an office setting and telling them that they have what it takes to be an astronaut and that they should reach for the stars. All of their friends are going to college, and all their teachers say that this is their best option.

So, you're proposing that the kid ignore the advice of everybody around them. That simply isn't a decision that most kids are going to make. Sure, everybody around them is collectively stupid, but that isn't the kid's fault. What they do share in is the collective desire to imagine the world as they want it to be, and not as it actually is.

That isn't the advice I'd give my kid, but...

And hey, maybe those parents are doing the right thing. After all, if everybody collectively loses their minds then we can have a big bailout and the only people who lose out are those who didn't take advantage of the big bubble.

Re:Highly unethical.

[jittles]

I do. You take some 18 year old kid who has absolutely no idea of the value of money or how hard it is to get a professional job, and you ask them to make a $100k+ financial decision, while showing them TV sitcoms with a bunch of college educated 30-year-olds having fun in an office setting and telling them that they have what it takes to be an astronaut and that they should reach for the stars. All of their friends are going to college, and all their teachers say that this is their best option.

So the buck stops where on personal responsibility? The teachers? The parents? The friends? With the mortgage bubble, the people who took out loans they could not afford are equally responsible as the people who gave them the loans. Sure there were some dishonest mortgage brokers, but you don't have to be a math genius to find a financial calculator on the internet and realize your own personal responsibility. Perhaps our educational and family systems have failed to emphasize the importance of personal responsibility, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I have a handful of friends with $1600 a month student loan payments. Do I empathize with them? Sure. I've had a very expensive surgery that cost more than my student loans ever did. Do I blame my parents because I was born with a physical ailment that required surgery, when discovered? No. I am an adult, I am responsible for all my decisions, and even sometimes for things completely out of my control.

And as I said in my first statement, I was 18 years old once. I was in that exact same position, only with a girl pressuring me to go to private school. I refused to enslave myself to the cost of my education. We eventually ended up breaking up over that, and our resulting long distance relationship. She's the only ex-girlfriend I've ever wondered "what might have been" with to this very day. But if you gave me that decision to make again today, I'd still flat out refuse.

Re:Highly unethical.

[Rich0]

So the buck stops where on personal responsibility? The teachers? The parents? The friends? With the mortgage bubble, the people who took out loans they could not afford are equally responsible as the people who gave them the loans.

Actually, in both cases the problem was with idiots who loaned money to people not capable of paying it back. Sure, the people accepting the loans were doing wrong, and should bear some of the pain. However, in the end the only reason that any of this stuff happens is because of financial systems (often the result of legislation) that involve people making money at the risk of somebody else's money.

In the case of student loans that is pretty obvious - the bank's money is never at risk, so they'll loan it to anybody. If the kid can't make his $1600/month payment then Uncle Sam will pay it for them, and pay the bank a collection fee to shake down the kid for more. If the bank had to risk its OWN money on that loan, you can bet that they'll be darn sure that little Johnny has a promising future ahead of him before just writing him a check, and the amounts would be much lower, and colleges that want to stay open would find a way to provide a much cheaper education like they did in the 70s.

In the case of the mortgage crisis there were more factors. Much of it came from people with tons of money to invest, little personal stake in the outcome, and tons of agencies paid to tell people what they wanted to hear. Companies were leveraged horribly due to repeat of depression-era controls. Everybody and their uncle has a pension or 401k or something, and all that money has to be invested in something, so anybody who has a scheme that sounds good can get billions of dollars. The result is a financial services sector that dominates the national economy despite producing little of worth. You can yell at mortgage brokers giving out bad loans, but they wouldn't be doing that if others weren't buying up those loans, and they wouldn't be buying if some dumb guy weren't being taken to the cleaners. The dumb guy usually turns out to be a naive investor, or perhaps even an involuntary one like an employee who has a pension - it isn't like the company really cares if they lose it or not as long as Uncle Sam signs off on it.

I'm all for accountability, but the student loan system is anything but.

Bottom line, though, is that I doubt we disagree all that much...

Re:Highly unethical.

[jittles]

Certainly, I will agree that the way the mortgages was sold was immoral and risky. I also agree that the loans were given to unqualified borrowers due to a loosening of federal regulations. Part of the reason that the investment bankers were going buck wild, though, is due to the fact that banks could all of the sudden start investing some of their holdings. They were also able to merge with investment houses. So then you ended up with banks like Goldman Sachs betting against their own customer's investments. Its asinine. Like I said in my other comment, I believe that everyone has unique talents, but morality is not common. So feel free to be pessimistic about the integrity of humans.

Need to seperate off-label from non-prescribed use

[damn_registrars]

If an ADHD drug is used to enhance studying abilities, but is managed by a competent physician, then that can be acceptable. On the other hand, if someone is purchasing it off the street - possibly depriving someone of their needed prescription or purchasing a questionable product - then the danger is significant.

Life is like a horserace

[doesnothingwell]

The race is faster when you hop up all the ponies on speed. But its still the same field of ponies, the only winners are the ones running the race.

I have ADHD

[Anonymous Coward]

I have ADHD and posting AC because I know people at work frequent here.

Long story short, these kinds of drugs literally saved my life. Imagine waking up from a coma, yeah, that potent.

For everyone? Nope, but if it was truly able to keep people more focused the general population would eventually accept it.

We have soldiers taking stimulants to keep them up for 36 hours at a time, we have people who try hypnosis to stop smoking, we have "energy" drinks which are legal, but probably more harmful.

Make no mistake, greed will destroy the good. It will become another form of drug abuse which students will eventually use to get their marks changed because they're "addicted" and governments will intervene, and pass laws.

Bah, you can't stop people from being greedy and dicks. But at least you can help those who need it.

Re:I have ADHD

[Deus.1.01]

Ditto.

I've been on Methamphetamine trial since the beginning of this month...after 8 moths of trying to get an psychiatric...3 of which was wasted on a psychologist on a wild goose chase to see if i were an aspie.

Now, I weren't the best in following prescriptinon...after several years without checkups it sorta happened...I blame myself but there it is.

I tried to do something about it, called my doctor, tried to get the wheel in motion in lieu of my internship.

Now...spring...has been fucking fantastic...did shitload of work, promoted my self personally in the field... and worked in the office 24 to 30 hours.
It was stupid todo so, routine would be great, but bottom line is...now Im on Metamina with an excruciating slow trial period.

I've not touched Ritalin for 2 months...

Its...Going from reflective, curious, open, calm and relaxed....to anxious, jittery and fogged up.

Its the worst HELL I've been through, I feel all my ambition are just slipping through my fingers, my own identity being denied to me, my own mind.

emo/slitwrists and all that.

But natural or no, it works...it works for Paul Erdos it worked for me.

It wasnt a Silver Bullet, but at least i had a loaded gun to use.

Re:I have ADHD

[Deus.1.01]

CHRIST! Sorry SORRY!

Dextroamphetamine! Dexamphetamine! Not Meth!

The Measure of a Man

[Anonymous Coward]

Lt. Commander Data: Sir, Lieutenant La Forge's eyes are far superior to human biological eyes, true?
Capt. Picard: M-hm.
Lt. Commander Data: Then why are not all human officers required to have their eyes replaced with cybernetic implants?

Re:The Measure of a Man

[longhairedgnome]

What was the response?

Dexedrine and the Air Force

[relikx]

For what it's worth we've decided it's ethical for our military to use (dextro)-amphetamines in long flights, even bombing runs I recall. In the case of long-term studying, the ethical boundaries will be defined by the success of its use as a legitimate "tool" not unlike a 5 Hour Energy.

Obviously the effects aren't comparable but Americans love to take a pill to cure or enhance something, anything, everything. This seems to be the logical conclusion of this thinking continued. If it's any consolation, perhaps amphetamine salts are the most benign uppers physiologically.

Would it ever be ethical to ween a meth user off through the use of non-methyl amphetamines?

Substance Abuse

[TemperedAlchemist]

Addictive and dangerous substances such as those found in more powerful ADHD medicines should not be ethically given out to those who do not require it. It is dangerous and may contribute to widespread misuse and abuse.

Safer forms of mind-enhancing chemicals, like caffeine, may be ethically used. Additional therapies like electrostimulation may also be used to increase brain performance. Learning to make our minds work better is not a bad thing, but creating a society where one is forced to play with a dangerous substance to get an edge is ethically questionable at best.

Re:Substance Abuse

[El Puerco Loco]

They're only addictive when injected/smoked in large doses. And "abuse" is a value judgement.

Re:Substance Abuse

[TemperedAlchemist]

You do not sound like someone very familiar with the neurophysiological effects of addiction. I suggest reading a textbook or two on the subject.

Re:Substance Abuse

[El Puerco Loco]

I've read more than one. Route and rate of administration are the two biggest factors in addiction. Nobody ever got addicted to amphetamines from taking a 10mg pill to pull an all nighter. And if route of administration didn't matter, then nobody on methadone would ever go back to shooting smack. But they do.

Re:Substance Abuse

[betterunixthanunix]

Addictive and dangerous substances...

...are routinely sold over the counter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol

Of course

[guises]

The only way you could see these drugs as unethical is if you look at life and learning as a game - if someone learns more than you on the down-low that's cheating, life should be a struggle, etc. Obviously people with rich parents should be banned from the competition.

For those who haven't tried it: adderall is a much smoother stimulant than caffeine. The effect is similar, but without the crash. Hands down better for productivity, just more expensive thanks to prohibition.

Re:Of course

[slew]

Hopefully, for you and many other folks, we won't discover some day that Adderall has an unforseen side effect (say like that miracle diet drug Fen-Phen)... As I understand it, Adderall basically a stimulant that works similarly to meth and coke in the body and (like Fen-Phen) has a potential for causing cardiac problems.

Re:Of course

[guises]

Adderall is an amphetamine just like meth (methamphetamine). I wrote a whole thing about how the methyl group doesn't change the way the drug functions, just the rate at which it's absorbed, but Wikipedia says I'm wrong. Oh well. The short is: of course there are some negative side effects, all stimulants have the potential to cause cardiac problems, but it's pretty unlikely that new ones are going to show up. Unlike Fen-Phen, amphetamines have been around for a long time and very thoroughly studied.

Re:Of course

[jpstanle]

Hopefully, for you and many other folks, we won't discover some day that Adderall has an unforseen side effect (say like that miracle diet drug Fen-Phen)... As I understand it, Adderall basically a stimulant that works similarly to meth and coke in the body and (like Fen-Phen) has a potential for causing cardiac problems.

Amphetamine salts were first synthesized in the 19th century, and have been used therapeutically since the 1930's. They are among some of the most well understood and thoroughly studied drugs in use. Many instant-release ADHD meds have been around so long that they have been generic for DECADES. Yes, they have a tremendous potential for cardiac complications and other significant side-effects, but we've known about that for half a century. The chances of unforeseen side effects of amphetamines suddenly coming to light are about as likely as suddenly finding out that aspirin causes brain tumors.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Yvanhoe]

Except when they are not. Responsible use of psychotropic is not unheard of. See coffee and see alcohol. Two abusable substances but that can be used responsibly.

You mean, besides coffee?

[BrendaEM]

Although, it is a roundabout thing, I use coffee to focus.

We make machines more efficient, why not people?

[acidradio]

If we are truly capable of "better" or "super" abilities but with the aid of some kind of drug, stimulant or other substance... basically aren't we just harnessing something we already "have" but is not finely tuned or inaccessible? In the mechanical world this is done all the time - engineers scour all the possible ways to make a race car, an airplane, a piece of factory machinery more efficient. Humanity is looking for solutions to LOTS of complicated things. Why can't we make OURSELVES more efficient?

The bigger question to me is why aren't we naturally that well tuned, why do we have to take a drug to make ourselves more focused, better working, harder working? Were we generally more tuned in the past? What has this modern environment of cubicles, GMO food, blinding fluorescent light, lack of healthy and walkable environs, what has that done to the human animal and our ability to think and work?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I fear hard-core drugs like coke, crack, meth, heroin, etc. I don't trust myself. I've never had an addiction before, but I'm not about to find out how strong of a will I have either.

Sage advice: Don't think about experimenting. Just walk away if presented with the stuff.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[TubeSteak]

Long term studies of children perscribed stimulant medication shows two things
1. Through their teens, they're less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol compared to their peers
2. As adults, their rates of drug/alcohol abuse are neither higher nor lower than is normal for their age group.

/Caffeine might as well be apple juice compared to amphetamines

meme time

[greywire]

I, for one, welcome our Non-Prescription ADHD Medication User overlords.

But seriously. If I can ingest something that's going to improve my mind in some way without side effects, or with known side that I can manage, I'm sure as hell going to do it.

Almost all of us already do it and have been doing it for a very long time. Coffee. Aspirin (its much easier to think without a headache..). Ginseng. And probably a hundred other naturally occurring things. Even vitamins count. I personally feel I've even gotten benefits from LSD and Marijuana. If some current or future compound can improve my memory, my thinking speed, or reduce the amount of sleep I need, I'm all over it.

Now pardon me while I suck down a still legal monster energy drink and work all night long..

Could be awesome....

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

If you think Lance Armstrong, Keith Richards and Ben Johnson are forming a super team to take on the alien Chitauri and all they need is a super intellect to round out the team, I can't see it as unethical.

Uplift

[MnemonicMan]

See: The Uplift Series.

If drugs and/or surgical modification was both safe and effective? Sign me up. I'd love to sit down with a C++11 book, flip through the pages fast in half an hour and then be an expert programmer. Spare me the - admit it - religiously inspired dogma. I want to be better, stronger, faster, and while I'm at it please remove that bummer of a failure condition called "death" too.

I've been abusing them responsibly for years

[DSS11Q13]

I don't do any illegal drugs, I've never smoked marijuana or cigarettes, but I do use Ritalin both for stress and when I need to be productive. There aren't any side effects unless you abuse it. Frankly, it's a drug I'd like to see "abused" more, considering it's effects are essentially the opposite of marijuana's, it makes you productive and want to work!!!

Re:I've been abusing them responsibly for years

[proca]

I've been taking Adderall for a long time, and there are definitely side effects even if you don't abuse it. Also, you are using illegal drugs if you don't have a prescription.

Re:I've been abusing them responsibly for years

[PolygamousRanchKid]

it makes you productive and want to work!!!

Well, I hope at least that your employer pays for it then.

Actually, it might be a good idea for a company to get employees addicted to performance enhances drugs, that they can only get from the employer. Something like White in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

I, personally, would never take Ecstasy, because I would never want to take a drug that would make me like other people. I guess I should change my name to MisanthropicalRanchKid . . .

Re:I've been abusing them responsibly for years

[geekoid]

"I don't do any illegal drugs"..."I don't do any illegal drugs"

Logically inconsistent. You do, in fact, take illegal drugs.

I've been taking Adderall for almost 13 years

[proca]

In high school, I had my own web development company and was an accomplished, award-winning saxophone player but I struggled getting the grades I should have been able to get for a reason that I couldn't understand. I was diagnosed with ADHD in 10th grade and set upon a journey involving virtually every drug recommended for the disorder. I settled upon Adderall and have been taking it ever since. Reading through the comments on this page, I find it amusing that everyone seems to have such a black and white opinion on the subject. I, on the other hand, really don't know what to think.

Studies show that nothing is more effective at treating ADHD than stimulants and cognitive therapy does virtually nothing without drugs. Furthermore, people who control their ADHD with medication are FAR more likely to avoid substance abuse than if they leave their condition untreated. I'm sure everyone knows a really smart kid in high school who smoked their life away on weed and never made anything of themselves. I know that I personally would have probably gone this route, as I was already heading in that direction. Finally, stimulants like Adderall haven't been shown to have any real long term health consequences and (contrary to popular belief) are not particularly addictive if taken as directed.

Anyone who has been to college in the past decade can tell you that Adderall can certainly help you cram for tests. Does that mean it gives them an advantage? I really don't think so. I've crammed for a lot of tests, and unless you're a business or mass communication major, you are not going to get an A by cramming. Try cramming a month's worth of organic chemistry in one night with some Adderall. You'll probably pass, but you definitely aren't getting an A. People get A's on tests by keeping up with the work. Not to mention the horrific day you have after cramming all night on speed. The biggest advantage I saw with Adderall was playing Quake 3, and even then there were people a lot better than me that used nothing but Mountain Dew.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think that people are overestimating the power of stimulants. Their biggest advantage is that you can stay up later, but if you don't take the drug regularly, you will also not be able to get to sleep. You'll also not eat enough and will probably have issues with sexual dysfunction. If that sounds like an unfair advantage to you, I don't know what to tell you.

The issue with

[Ghjnut]

these medications is they provide an escape for learning things when someone doesn't have the self-motivation to propel themselves through the task. As you continue to use the substance, it becomes the primary means for information uptake. "I don't feel like studying right now, I'll just take a little dose of this to enhance my motivation/interest" becomes the de facto fallback. A hefty majority of life is learning to spark your own interest; when you're constantly doing it through rose-colored glasses, it becomes much more difficult to achieve on an even keel. At least, this has been my experience with the situation.

Re:The issue with

[proca]

I disagree entirely with your statement. You are making generalizations about a topic you obviously don't know anything about. While there are certainly people who fit your description, there are many who do not.

Re:The issue with

[Ghjnut]

I'm not speaking on behalf of people who have legitimately been prescribed medications and need them for legitimate medical reasons. I'm speaking simply as someone who has in the past used these types of drugs specifically for they benefits they offer in the context of academics and cognitive enhancements in general. Maybe it's a more stereotypical case of abuse but I think there's a lot to be said for that spectrum of the argument.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[proca]

Me take adderall long time. I not soulless ghoul

What are ethics for?

[Kohath]

Was anyone harmed or endangered? Assuming the answer is no, then the question is: if self-improvement is unethical, then what are ethics good for?

If ethics are good, then harmless self-improvement can't be unethical. If ethics are neither good nor bad, but just a set of valueless rules or tenets, then the question can only answered by the ethical standard's author. And there's no evident reason anyone else should care one way or the other.

Re:What are ethics for?

[kryzx]

If only we were a little smarter we would be able to work out the ethics of this once and for all. Here, take this.

Re:Need to seperate off-label from non-prescribed

[slew]

So, according to you somehow purchasing adderall off the street is "possibly depriving someone of their needed prescription"...
Q: When has purchasing prescription drugs off the street ever made this statement true?

Also, your plan seems to only make it available for people rich enough to afford to buy off a physician to manage it. Basically if you are too poor to afford it, you get left in the dust. A modern day quaint extension of the idea that only rich kids get to go to college...

Re:Americans and Pharma??!

[plover]

I have no way of knowing if your friends are typical or atypical. But my American medicine cabinet contains an expired bottle of generic aspirin, an expired bottle of brand name ibuprofen, an unexpired bottle of generic acetaminophen, a few bandaids, some Vitamin D, and an expired tube of goo to spread on cuts to help reduce infections. Oh, and some anti-diarrhea pills. It would be a starvation zone for junkies. It certainly isn't big business for big pharma.

My refrigerator, on the other hand, has about 20 grams of caffeine left in it. Tomorrow, it will have 19. I keep a much closer eye on that stock.

A different ethical question

[proca]

Is it ethical to take away stimulant medication from a person who has been thriving due to their ADHD being successfully managed? How does a doctor adhere to the Hippocratic Oath of "Do no harm" and deny the patient access to a medication that has changed their life?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[jersacct]

Sage advice: Don't think about experimenting. Just walk away if presented with the stuff.

That begs the question - what does one do when everyone else around them is using a drug that, while maybe negligibly harmful, gives them the upper hand at doing your job? Do you relegate yourself to taking out the trash for the drug-enhanced super-performers, or do you bend to the pressure?

It's an interesting topic, to be sure. I am of the same opinion that I am not about to try some random drug, but I am not so sure that I would be able to resist the temptation of a "Limitless" type substance.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[TheRecklessWanderer]

in the short term, it gives you superpowers. in the long term, it turns you into a soulless ghoul

that's right, i just said the lord of the rings is a parable about drug addiction

So then you are saying that the drugs will lead to a life in politics?

What's the definition of "impaired"?

[bradley13]

What's the definition of "impaired"? I have always had a terrible memory. In college, I would study the material when it was taught. When the tests came around, I had to basically re-learn the material from scratch. And re-learn it again for the final exam. While I was a top student, I looked on with amazement when other students could retain stuff after learning it the first time. Is a lousy memory an impairment? I don't know, but I would certainly have been ecstatic to be able to swallow a safe, non-addictive pill and get a decent memory.

Let's set any PC idiocy aside. If one can avoid addiction and side-effects, there is absolutely nothing wrong with enhancing people's cognitive abilities. Why should there be?

Re:What's the definition of "impaired"?

[Tonik, the]

Judging by the info on your website, you are reasonably successful in life despite your poor memory. What's your secret?

Re:What's the definition of "impaired"?

[PeanutButterBreath]

What's the definition of "impaired"? I have always had a terrible memory. In college, I would study the material when it was taught. When the tests came around, I had to basically re-learn the material from scratch. And re-learn it again for the final exam.

That depends. One definition is: inability to forget things that don't matter.

hmm

[drolli]

career and success are about etics? Sounds funny, given the amount of books out there which advise you how to do things close to lying and selling youself as somebody who you arent, books how manipulate your co-workers, etc.

No career and success are always about what you are willing to do, and what personal consequences you are willing to accept

Re:hmm

[drolli]

side remark: the consqequences of taking ADHD medicine can be severe.

Those are some shoddy ethicists!

[Dr. Spork]

Hey, sometimes I'm asked to teach ethics at a largish public university. I wouldn't call myself an ethicist, but can smell the bullshit on this from a mile away. First of all, every ethicist, along with every moderately educated person, should be aware of the genetic fallacy - which is that the origin or original purpose of something is irrelevant to what ought to be done with it. So what if these drugs were made to treat impairments? What relevance does that have to what should be done with them? Second, they act like pharmaceuticals should only be given to people "in need" - but what does this mean? Just in what sense do men "need" Viagra and women need birth control? I strongly support giving access to everyone who wants these drugs, but let's not pretend that they're being distributed on the basis of need. Their role is to enable lifestyle choices, not to remedy a need. And that's what makes them good things. We on Slashdot know very well that you don't need to fuck, ever.

I definitely have an ethical problem with sports doping, but that's because it's an unsafe practice that should be contained for the sake of the health of the athletes. If Adderall turns out to be similarly dangerous, I say that the ethical argument is over. But the interesting case would be if it (or its better successors) turn out to be acceptably safe - like caffeine is - and also measurably effective. Then the question of fairness comes up: Undrugged people will be at a disadvantage. Then again, uneducated people are very much at a disadvantage. Education is the most important personal enhancement you can obtain, and it's not cheap, nor accessible to all. Yet this would be a strange reason to ban it. Some people might complain that they are in an unfair competition because their competitors have Ph.D's in science - a sort of juicing. But that would be very silly. I certainly think that the Adderall gap is much easier and cheaper to close than the education gap, so this "unfair advantage" argument also smells like crap to me. If I had a worry about this drug scenario, it would be that unscrupulous companies would demand that their employees are doped up with enhancers when they're on the clock. That would be unfortunate. But then again, I don't think that many people would take such a job, and those that do would be entitled to a higher compensation. We already have the concept of hazard pay, and this kind of an office job would still be less dangerous than, say, underwater welding. In general, it seems like these so-called ethicists are just fishing for reasons to be luddites, and their fishing skills are are rather poor.

Re:Those are some shoddy ethicists!

[macraig]

A small nitpick... my recollection of informal research is that caffeine is only safe to a certain point. Too much caffeine, like too much testosterone or steroidals, can be dangerous.

There is a rough observational way to tell if someone truly "needs" a stimulant to compensate for ADD traits (to achieve the mean behavior): the effect or threshold of the compound will be different for that person than for a neurotypical one. Their brain and body won't metabolize it the same. A more objective test than observation would be nice, though.

I don't disagree with your ethical assessment. Even good nutrition versus malnutrition could be misconstrued as an "unfair" advantage.

Re:Those are some shoddy ethicists!

[crispylinetta]

my recollection of informal research is that caffeine is only safe to a certain point. Too much caffeine, like too much testosterone or steroidals, can be dangerous.

Or too much water, too much calcium, too much of anything. In determining the safety of ingesting something, one must evaluate the ease of staying within limits that are unlikely to produce negative results, and the likelihood and consequences of the negative results in comparison to the benefits.

Re:Those are some shoddy ethicists!

[macraig]

I still remember the local woman who died on the air during a talk radio program that had a contest to see who could drink the most water in the shortest span of time.

Show me a Smart Drug...

[macraig]

... and I'll show you a misleading marketing campaign worthy of a Presidential election.

Ain't no such thing yet. Possibly never will be. Prescribing neuroactive drugs now is like playing darts blindfolded.

Meaningless title

[sgunhouse]

Of course non-prescription use is ethical - if it is used for its intended purpose. Just because a drug doesn't require a prescription doesn't make it ineffective. And abuse is abuse, whether or not the drug requires a prescription. The summary (and presumably the article) isn't really about whether a drug happens to require a prescription or whether a drug is actually prescribed (I suppose physicians can still subscribe drugs that don't require a prescription), but whether use of a drug outside of its specific intent is ethical.

I mean, I can easily imagine that parents of a child with ADHD might hear of some non-prescription alternative, do suitable research to determine if it is likely to be effective, what an appropriate dosage for their child would be, and of course compare costs - and decide to switch to the non-prescription alternative. What, exactly, would be unethical in that?

Re:Meaningless title

[chrismcb]

Of course non-prescription use is ethical - if it is used for its intended purpose.

The question is, is it ethical to use it for something other than the intended purpose. But that is a loaded question. Many things are used for things other than their intended purposed. How many people use WD-40 to displace water?
Even drugs have multiple side effects. And they might be used differently than the creator intended. Does it make it wrong, or unethical to use them?
I don't even know why it is an ethics question

Re:Meaningless title

[Kingofearth]

What if the chemist who originally created Adderall intended for it to be used to just get super tweaked and strung out for days on end? What does the "intended purpose" have anything to do with responsible or ethical use?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[TheInternetGuy]

in the short term, it gives you superpowers. in the long term, it turns you into a soulless ghoul

that's right, i just said the lord of the rings is a parable about drug addiction

So then you are saying that the drugs will lead to a life in politics?

So then you are saying that the drugs will lead to a life in politics?

Only if you don't inhale!

Re:We make machines more efficient, why not people

[kryzx]

Exactly. We try to improve ourselves in countless other ways. Diet, exercise, sunscreen, makeup, plastic surgery, moisturizer, viagra, propecia, yoga, and on and on. To me that's not even a question. We can and should improve ourselves.

Now the questions that remain are
What are the benefits? What are the side effects, short and long term? What is the tradeoff?
Are there broad public health concerns, like addiction?
What is the cost - and is this going to deepen class inequality?

From my perspective, the government should have *very* *very* good reasons before they consider taking away my right to weigh my options and decide what substances I will put in my body.

And for what it's worth, when there are drugs that make us smarter, with minimal side effects, I'm all for taking them and getting them to as many people as possible. We need more smarts around here. Meaning everywhere on the planet.

Re:We make machines more efficient, why not people

[Meeni]

You are posing half the questions, so you get the wrong conclusion. I'm not going to propose a conclusion, as there are none that fit all cases.

Should we do anything to get better ? If it has no adverse consequence, why not? The problem is that it has, more than often, consequences. Those athletes on steroid die young for a reason. L. Armstrong got a specific kind of cancer when he was still very young, he was lucky to survive it, but it is typical of a substance abuse induced cancer. Assuming that he did take pills to improve his performance (although proofs are becoming difficult to refute, it is still debated, but lets just assume for the sake of the argument that he did), was it ethical for Armstrong to sacrifice his health to improve his performance? Maybe it was free choice, so we should not interfere.

But then, what about the other competitors? If they don't take performance pills, they cannot compete, it is as simple as that. So now, just to be level, even if you don't want to, you have to take dangerous substance to stay level in the field.

Now we are talking about sports, an activity that can be mostly seen as an entertainment (even if big money can be entitled). But if we were to extend performance pill usage to all activities, then where is your choice ? You have the choice between being an unproductive, unfit and impoverished sorry food bond subside, and being a successful but short lived professional who made the "choice" of dying from performance enhancement ?

As for productivity, it has never been so high. Maybe so high that we are actually already starting to kill ourselves "thinking and working", as the stress has also never been so high. Past difficult works tended to be straining and physically dangerous. But they were also repetitive and less involving. Today's works are less physically dangerous (even in fields which are still dangerous or physical, machines and better practice have improved the situation), but they appeal to more creativity, involvement and are deadline oriented. To meet productivity milestone, it often takes more work that is normally possible, leading to stress from under-achievement (systematic as goals are unrealistic) and overwork. Should we make the picture even darker by adding the threat of chemical poisoning to meet ever increasing performance goals? Maybe not.

Re:News For Ethicists?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Interesting article, I suppose, but is this really /. stuff?"

I don't understand why you seem to think it should not be Slashdot stuff. Care to explain?

Re:Ethics is about suffering

[Jane Q. Public]

"Ethics is about reducing suffering, not fairness or propriety."

Say wut?

Ethics isn't just one or the other of those things, it is all of them. And a few other things besides.

What "Playing Field?"

[bistromath007]

God forbid this be treated as anything other than a zero sum game, or that we focus more on the detrimental effects than some weird standards of biological fairness.

Re:We make machines more efficient, why not people

[Jane Q. Public]

"The bigger question to me is why aren't we naturally that well tuned, why do we have to take a drug to make ourselves more focused, better working, harder working?"

Because evolution is S -- L -- O -- W.

Humans are already among the hardest working of mammals (bet you didn't know that). A human being can do more work ("work" as defined in physics) over a long period of time, per kilogram of body mass, than almost any other animal known.

We already probably have among the longest, if not the longest, attention spans.

I mean really... what do you want? It would take thousand of years, perhaps more, before those things improved significantly, left up to Mother Nature.

It is nobody else's business

[Jafafa Hots]

what an adult chooses to put into their own body. Period.

Except maybe the smallpox virus.

Re:It is nobody else's business

[geekoid]

False.
UNless you find away to isolate all effects from everyone else around them. Hint: You can't.

Re:It is nobody else's business

[Procrasti]

You are wrong. Everything you do affects everyone else. Therefore, this is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is if what you do actually harms another person.

Therefore, someone injecting PCP is not your business. Someone eating your eyeballs is your business, but it is completely irrelevant if they are eating your eyeballs because they took PCP, or if they eating your eyeballs because they like the taste. The harm is not in taking the drugs, the harm is in the actions.

OTOH, I think you spend too much time on slashdot, and this affects me greatly. So you should just FUCK OFF ASSHOLE.

For a view from the other side...

[antifoidulus]

Slate did an excellent writeup a few years back on experimenting using non-prescription ADHD meds. One of the most interesting tidbits to come out of that article was that authors Jack Kerouac, James Agee, Graham Greene, and Philip K. Dick all apparently took ADHD drugs "recreationally" to help them write, as did Paul Erdos. Whether it really helped them create all that great work is up for debate, but most of those guys swore by the stuff and they all seemed to pump out some pretty good work....

Re:For a view from the other side...

[mjr167]

Philip K. Dick has an interesting note on drug use at the end of A Scanner Darkly. Basically he says that he and all his friends did drugs left and right because it was fun. He then goes on to explain the consequences of their actions. While he may have writtena number of brillient and insightful books, his life was not one I would want to have.

Phillip K. Dick's actuall thoughts on drug use

Re:For a view from the other side...

[geekoid]

Based on the numbers of people who take them, and don't go on to write great novels, It's probably has little effect.

Of course, their ego-centric bias is completely irrelevant to determining if it actually as an impact.

Any head-ache tablet works

[flyingfsck]

In my experience, any head-ache tablet or common cold medicine will improve your mental accuity and test scores. For example Aspirin, Codis and Actifed all helped me pass exams. The best is a combination common cold cure with a coctail of things in it. I figured that out when I noticed that I performed remakably much better in the winter exams when I was sniffeling and feeling totally rotten - so I started to take a dollop of the goop during the summer exams and it worked.

Ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it ethical to throw people in jail for smoking an organic plant that has proven medicinal properties?

No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me!

[ShadowBlasko]

Thanks to Non-Prescription use I am not able to get my PRESCRIPTION ADHD meds filled due to the tightening of DEA guidelines on amphetamine salts.

I need my meds to function. Without them I am pretty much useless. I have been on Dexedrine for almost 20 years, but my prescription has gone from (no-insurance prices) $50 to over $400 a month.

I can't afford it, and unless I can get a decent job I can't get prescription coverage to get my meds, but I can't get my meds without a prescription.

Mostly thanks to recreational users and college age drug seekers who want to party all night and still carry a 3.5.

Enjoy your parties, and higher scores... just know that it might not be YOU that is paying the price. It might be someone else who is paying the price for your cheating your way through school on speed.

Re:I've been there

[ajlitt]

Nobody's pointed out the oft-reported decline in creativity that comes with some of these treatments. Those perturbations in linear thought processes aren't always bad...

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[PolygamousRanchKid]

So then you are saying that the drugs will lead to a life in politics?

Only if you don't inhale!

Maybe if he had taken study drugs, he would have remembered that he did inhale . . . ?

. . . and better understand what the word sex means . . . ?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[symbolset]

Somebody who is using Adderal to get high has other issues. Their life is not comfortable and they seek escape. Denying them drugs does not solve the problem.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[circletimessquare]

the wisest man respects his own limits

Not a real choice

[Roger W Moore]

Unless you have the ability to predict the future that will never be a real choice. What you are offering is a pill to make you smart and then kill you. You might make no significant breakthrough - unlike Hollywood in real life simply being smart is not enough - otherwise the first thing I would do after taking the pill is figure out a way to overcome the fatal side effects of taking the pill.

Is it acceptable if

[Chrisq]

Is it acceptable if you are just taking it to counteract the other non-prescription drugs you took the night before?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[evil_aaronm]

Why should we not use every last available option to improve ourselves? You're arguing that we should walk, when we could take mag-lev trains, or fly, because it's somehow "not natural."

How widespread?

[Mr. Freeman]

>College students' voracious appetite for study drugs like Adderall is widespread enough that it was one of the main topics of a marquee lecture on neuroethics

That doesn't mean jack shit. Urban legends are widespread enough that people take stupid precautions against things that have never happened. Exactly how many students are using these drugs? Is this a real problem or just another sensational story that blows a few cases out of proportion?

Re:How widespread?

[stymy]

It's very common nowadays. I'm in university right now and I know a number of people who use Adderall to study, for example. But most people I know are in the Faculty of Mathematics, like me. I've heard rates are far higher for med students due to how much they need to memorize.

Re:How widespread?

[geekoid]

Does it work? can you use it to memorize things and then recall what you memorized after the drug has left your system?

Re:How widespread?

[Unkyjar]

Adderal and Ritalin just give you a boost of energy (like a couple shots of espresso) and causes you to focus on things better. If that is studying, you find yourself studying for an hour or two without realizing it or taking a break. Unfortunately it also leads to you focusing on things like reorganizing your photograph folder or CD's. Usually you take a pill for studying, and crush and snort a pill if you want a pick me up for partying.

Negative side effects usually were similar to that of too much caffeine added with it being a real rough drug for your kidneys (don't take if you are prone to kidney stones.)

I never noticed any memory enhancement. Though I suppose when you give things your full attention as you do under the drug, you can't help but remember them better than things you aren't giving your full attention to.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Coeurderoy]

you must be a member of the 50cents party, american branch...

We're already there.

[Animats]

Then why are not all human officers required to have their eyes replaced with cybernetic implants?

The U.S. Army is already there with the Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program. "To increase combat readiness, the Department of Defense has established the Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program (WRESP) which allows eligible active-duty soldiers to receive laser refractive eye surgery. The goal is to minimize or eliminate the need to wear corrective eyewear."

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[symbolset]

This is a common case: folk who can get high with neither benefit nor atavism. They're the tweeners who add nothing useful nor become a social problem. They have no problem for me to solve. But yes, I did leave them out because in this discussion they are nulls.

Insecure is more like it.

[mosb1000]

Fully actualized humans alter their brain and body chemistry all the time. Astronauts do it. Fighter pilots do it. Doctors do it. Athletes do it.

I don't see any reason to believe those people are "fully actualized." Why would someone who is "fully actualized" see the need to alter their body chemistry in order to enhance their "performance," in the face of potential harmful side-effects. A fighter pilot, maybe, in order to stay awake, but those others don't really need them. This whole conversation reeks of insecurity. Most of these uses are really no better than the "male enhances" they sell at conveince stores. Only someone who's insecure has that much trouble accepting their limitations.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[symbolset]

Do you use a stepladder to reach a high shelf? Is that cheating? What if mankind totally depends on you reaching that shelf. Then is it OK?

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a tool and the risks and advantages of it are well understood. What's not well understood are the consequences of screwing around with brain chemistry. It's tolerable when it comes to treating ADHD because there aren't many options and the dosage is generally low. Along with that people are generally monitored to make sure that nothing is obviously going wrong.

Plus, the people that get treated usually aren't responding to other forms of treatment and the alternatives tend to be much less desirable than possible damage due to taking low doses of stimulants over long periods of time.

With a step ladder there are things not to do like not standing on the top rung and making sure to have it well braced. If it's a tall one then you'll want to have somebody bracing it and such.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[N0Man74]

Using a calculator or a computer to perform complex tasks is a lot more analogous to using a stepladder to reach high stuff. Making these drugs mainstream is more like taking growth hormones (with possible unforeseen side-effects) to become taller in order to reach taller things.

Additionally, making these drugs more accessible to people who don't actually have a "problem", but want a an artificial advantage to be more competitive creates additional incentive for people who already are gifted to also seek a boost of their own abilities. This leads to "smart drugs" becoming the norm.

Outside of the pharmaceutical industry, who really wants this as a society?

Is it fair that some people are more gifted than others? Perhaps not, but that's life.

The problem isn't that people have unfair advantages, the problem is when people who are gifted (or more often, lucky) see the rest as being inferiors and exploit and leverage their status. Differing abilities wouldn't be such a big deal if man was more compassionate and less greedy.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[TheRealMindChild]

Additionally, making these drugs more accessible to people who don't actually have a "problem", but want a an artificial advantage to be more competitive creates additional incentive for people who already are gifted to also seek a boost of their own abilities

I see this kind of statement all over this discussion, like Aderall and Ritalin are these magic make-my-brain-work-better pills, that anyone can take. If you don't ADD/ADHD, taking these pills does NOT in anyway make you any more capable than you were before. As a matter of fact, it is a habit forming speed and taken without the proper diagnosis/ailment, is the same as someone who takes Xanax and doesn't suffer anxiety. They took it thinking it made them better, but instead became dependent and find they spiral downhill if they don't have it. Sad really.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[acausal]

I am a person who takes ADHD medication *with* a prescription. I also take a variety of nootropics because I am, for the first time in my life since getting a diagnosis a few years back, in a position to play "catch-up" with my peers in terms of having a career and cleaning up two decade's worth of personal disorganization. Which makes this thread interesting to me. I take the stimulant ADHD meds for ADHD, which brings me to a baseline, but nootropics really help me to use information I learned (in an essentially random order) before all this began. As all of the nootropics I take are over-the-counter and considered reasonably safe, many of my friends have tried them at various points out of curiosity. I think that I can safely say at this point that they're not particularly recreational or habit-forming. Most people don't like them, and aren't interested in taking them a second time. From my perspective - because I sort of fixate on the differences between myself and neurologically dissimilar people - it seems that people have attention spans all over the spectrum. No one at either of the ends of the scale is particularly "normal", which makes sense. Unless you're self-medicating for undiagnosed ADD or ADHD, however, stimulants don't seem to work that well for people after a short while. Frankly, it's probably wreaking havoc on your circadian rhythms either way, which I'm not all that comfortable with. I don't take a stimulant because I *want* to - it scares the hell out of me half the time if I really start thinking about it. I take it because I am not functional without it. Or perhaps more to the point, because I was not functional *before* it.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[TheRealMindChild]

In the case that an AC actually responds, I am willing to back myself up. For the effort, however, provide yours first.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[symbolset]

Original poster. If an adult human of average or better intelligence chooses to enhance his ability to absorb, assimilate and integrate information inputs by augmenting his perceptive faculties through chemical means, I would consider that no more unusual than a carpenter trying out a new hammer. It's his choice, and as a species we utterly rely on some of us making this choice. As a progress consumer I'm happy many gifted people make this choice.

It turns out that most gifted people blunt their perceptions through chemical means to be able to relate well to the normal people they must interact with to subsist. Some do better than others. Thus is most of our human potential wasted on the altar of conformance.

If he wants to suck-start a Colt 45 to not have to deal with you idiots any more instead, I support that solution too. His choice. I don't benefit from this choice, but I can accept it. An unfortunate percentage of the gifted choose something related to this path. But it's their body and they're entitled to operate it as they see fit even unto the end of it.

Re:Insecure is more like it.

[symbolset]

Change is not made by people who tread the well-worn path.

Wrong question.

[mosb1000]

The question is: is it safe? If its harmful, we should avoid using it. If not, who cares?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[ooshna]

You are correct there are always idiots who will abuse things like model glue, pain pills, hell even energy drinks. Unfortunately we have evolved to allow people like that to continue living and even scarier breed. In the words of the late great George Carlin " What ever happened to natural selection? Survival of the fittest? The kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own. Simple stuff. Nature knows best."

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[ooshna]

He was confused with the question when they said sexual intercourse he didn't know oral and anal counted.

Overclocking voids warranty

[roger_pasky]

Don't ask for further medical insurance support if you don't have a former medical prescription.

Nonsense.

[Maudib]

Of course its not unethical. Its your body, you have the right to do what you want to it.

Steroids in sports aren't unethical either. Lying about using them in order to game the system is what makes steroids an ethical issue, not their consumption. People need to stop telling other people what to do with their own bodies and mind their own fucking business.

Re:Nonsense.

[Princeofcups]

Of course its not unethical. Its your body, you have the right to do what you want to it.

Steroids in sports aren't unethical either. Lying about using them in order to game the system is what makes steroids an ethical issue, not their consumption. People need to stop telling other people what to do with their own bodies and mind their own fucking business.

Steroids are generally not sought by athletes, they are supplied by their coaches, managers, club owners, wrestling promoters, etc. If you were told that you had to take steroids to keep your job, that is no longer your own choice. And these drugs have severe long term effects, including organ failure and death. The situation is not as simple as you make it sound.

Re:Nonsense.

[jittles]

Of course its not unethical. Its your body, you have the right to do what you want to it.

Steroids in sports aren't unethical either. Lying about using them in order to game the system is what makes steroids an ethical issue, not their consumption. People need to stop telling other people what to do with their own bodies and mind their own fucking business.

You are 100% wrong. First of all, it drives me nuts that Maris's homerun record was broken by someone on steroids. If he had been on steroids, then maybe it would be a far comparison. And regardless of that particular perspective, the problem with performance enhancing drugs is not the effect on the person using them, but on the effect of others. If everyone starts taking steroids in professional football, then if you want to play, you will have to as well in order to perform at the same level. Now all of the sudden you have an entire career path that requires the use of drugs with harmful side effects. Now change it from steroids to Adderall and from football to university studies. You want to get that scholarship so you can afford to go to school? You want to pass the entrance examinations so you can get into your dream school? You better start taking Adderall because that's what your competition is doing. Its unethical. Most people do not want to ruin their bodies in this way. You are changing the field from natural abilities (which is obviously not fair, but everyone is good at something), to who can get the most effect from the most drugs possible. So don't try and argue that this is not hurting anyone but the user. It is hurting everyone who has to compete with the user.

Re:Nonsense.

[Rich0]

You are changing the field from natural abilities (which is obviously not fair, but everyone is good at something), to who can get the most effect from the most drugs possible.

Honestly, I think this the crux of the problem with your entire argument. Everybody is NOT good at something. As productivity increases, increasingly more people aren't good at anything (effectively). I suspect we'll actually reach a point where nobody is "good at something" - at least nobody human.

To be successful in modern business you generally need a set of talents that is largely genetic in origin, the willingness to work hard, and often the willingness to make ethical compromises. Depending on the job the degree to which you need to do any of those varies - I don't mean to imply that all jobs require all three of those. However, if you want to get ahead and your competition has more of some of those than you do, then you'll probably lose out.

I think the only issue comes from the fact that we need to work to survive in our current society.

Re:Nonsense.

[jittles]

Honestly, I think this the crux of the problem with your entire argument. Everybody is NOT good at something. As productivity increases, increasingly more people aren't good at anything (effectively). I suspect we'll actually reach a point where nobody is "good at something" - at least nobody human.

To be successful in modern business you generally need a set of talents that is largely genetic in origin, the willingness to work hard, and often the willingness to make ethical compromises. Depending on the job the degree to which you need to do any of those varies - I don't mean to imply that all jobs require all three of those. However, if you want to get ahead and your competition has more of some of those than you do, then you'll probably lose out.

I think the only issue comes from the fact that we need to work to survive in our current society.

I beg to differ. Perhaps you have just not seen what they are good at, or they have not discovered it themselves. I tutored an autistic kid who was not only incredibly strong for his size, but has amazing counting skills and focus, when he finds something that catches his interest. Once he hit high school, he found his passion and has never looked back. He's done great with his life, I am still in touch with his family to this day. I have also seen people who seem to be as dumb as rocks, but can interact with people so well that customers absolutely love to interact with them. The fact of the matter is that people, and their talents, are diverse. We try to put every square peg into the round hole of an expensive college education. Instead we should help people to find their passions and their talents, and then help them to succeed in that. Certainly there are a few people who are disabled by injuries or birth, who do not seem to be capable of taking care of themselves, but the majority of the people in the world excel at something.

Re:Nonsense.

[Rich0]

Certainly there are a few people who are disabled by injuries or birth, who do not seem to be capable of taking care of themselves, but the majority of the people in the world excel at something.

Well, you started with everybody, and now you're at a majority. I'll agree that right now a majority are good at something, but a majority is only 50% (I'm sure the real figure is more like 90%).

However, back in the day all you really needed was a strong back to earn a living. Now that really isn't enough unless you are willing and legally able to work for a few dollars per day. As technology marches on, there won't be a single job that won't be automated, certainly including counting, interacting well with customers, and so on. Why read a book written by a human if a book written by a computer is better? I'm sure at some point computers will understand the human condition better than people do. People are just machines - lots of complicated wiring, but entirely finite.

Re:Nonsense.

[jittles]

I only excluded those who are physically incapable of working, which is natural. And I only added that exception because you are being especially pedantic and pessimistic about your fellow humans.

Re:Nonsense.

[Rich0]

My whole point is that all of us will be physically and mentally incapable of working - I'll include myself in with the rest, even though at present I have a very good job that no computer that currently exists would be capable of doing well.

This is nothing about being pessimistic - try to out-perform a backhoe at digging holes some day. It simply isn't possible for a human to be more effective than a backhoe if you need some holes dug in the open. Now, automation hasn't gotten to the point where all human jobs can be replaced, especially those involving creativity and reasoning. However, that day will come - it is just a matter of time.

75 years ago anybody could get a job if they were willing to do work - a job that paid fairly well. Today simply being willing to work is not sufficient to get a job - almost all labor is skilled. Those jobs that didn't require skill still exist, but they're not performed by humans.

The economic problems we're seeing today are merely the first signs of a general change in the nature of productivity. Once upon a time it took half the population just to grow food. One day it won't require a single human being to do anything needed to sustain the entire human race at a level of opulence we do not have today. However, the question is who benefits from that opulence, as right now the only ways to make money are to do something or to own something, and the "do something" will no longer be an option.

WTF?

[Maudib]

"Others say that people shouldn't be using these drugs because they're designed for people with serious problems who really need help."

How is this a reason to ban usage? The intent of the designers should govern individual usage? How is this even relevant to the question?

Re:WTF?

[chrismcb]

I don't get it. I am sure there are a lot of products that we use today, that were designed to help people with serious problems. And yet someone discovered they were also helpful to people who didn't have serious problems.
This is really only an issue if there was a big shortage on the medication. And the article mentions nothing of a shortage.

Re:WTF?

[SleazyRidr]

First example that comes to mind is Viagra. It was initially designed to help people with heart or circulatory problems, but we all know how it got famous.

Re:LSD & heroin

[NettiWelho]

LSD in still being used in human studies, and most hospitals do stock heroin.

Re:We make machines more efficient, why not people

[silentcoder]

The picture is bleaker than you paint it. When I was about 18 I had the privilege of meeting one of the very first programmers who lived in my country. Some 40 years earlier (in the late 50's and early 60's) he had created the countries first database for social welfare on a computer the size of a building with 64 kilobytes of ram - and all the data in punch-cards.
He always used to say "today's programmers can't program - if your ALGORYTHMS can't fit in 64k of ram, they are badly written"

But the point is this - because of the sheer manual labour of finding the right punch card and loading it in - looking up a case-file alone took 20 to 30 minutes, before the person trying to see it could even read it.
Then there was whatever the cause was for reading it, whatever new notes were added, and ultimately replacing his punch-card with an updated one which had to be filed.
Editing a case file to add "payment made $DATE" took an hour.
And that was the most advanced technology available in the day - that hour sounds long, but it was 4 hours less than when the WHOLE process was manual (and you couldn't do things like do searches and extract statistics automatically AT ALL - even if they were slow due to card loading times).
What percentage of disability recipients were still war victims ? My grandfather worked in the department (that's how I got to meet this man) when he started there in the late 1940's answering that question would take two months. By the 1960's with their big computer - it would take just over a week.

Today any well-run such department could extract the answer to a question like that in seconds, a few minutes at worst.

We are literally ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more productive than our grandfathers were. We do in minutes what took them days and weeks. Simply because we have the technological capacity to achieve this.

So why are we, on average, working 30% longer every week than they were - for the same salaries our parents earned ? (On an HOURLY measurement for real hours worked, middle class salaries have decreased 30% over the past 3 decades) .

Where is that mass of extra productivity going ? It sure as hell isn't making our lives better - it sure as hell isn't improving our average quality of life like it used to. It isn't eradicating poverty either - indeed part of why unemployment is a growing problem world-wide is because there is too MUCH productivity available for the economy to make use off.

What is happening to the enormity of creation we all produce every week - so much more than any previous generation ever could - that we're working longer than they did and earning less for it?

Personally - I think the only logical conclusion is that every penny of that productivity is going into the pockets of a tiny elite.

This is when I remember the warning Adam Smith gave us nearly 2 centuries ago: High wages is good for society, high profit margins are bad for society.
The only logical conclusion is that there is only one kind of healthy economy and it's one where labour is the most valuable and expensive comoddity you can find and companies make virtually NO profit at all -just enough to survive, spending almost everything they make on salaries.
Exactly the OPPOSITE of the society we've built.

Is non-prescription ADHD med use ethical?

[jds91md]

No, never ethical, never appropriate. Leave drugs, their costs, their risks, their side effects, to those who have diseases. --JSt

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[ShadowBlasko]

Great. Tell me how I appeal to the DEA please, because I have been trying to plead this case for about 2 and a half years now, and so have several thousand doctors who have patients who can no longer access their medicines.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[r_a_trip]

"We are the borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

The ones against "enhancements" are trying to kill the dystopia before they are forced to join or worse, be relegated to the non-meds, pariah class.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[dintech]

So that noise that Gollum makes was actually just an Adderall stuck in his throat? I get why he was so persistant and focused about that ring now.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Internetuser1248]

Actually in ethics null is not unethical, therefore it is ethical by default. The question was 'is non prescription adhd medication use ever ethical'. If people use it for fun and harm no one, then the answer is yes.

Applied evolutionary theory: "no free lunch"

[LeDopore]

If smart = fit and fit = more kids, any gene that makes you smart will propagate exponentially. Changes giving a 1% boost will become dominant in a population after a few hundred generations.

"Cognition-enhancing" drugs have rather simple effects on the brain. It's almost certain that there's some genetic diversity that twiddles with the concentration of or sensitivity to any specific neurochemical - essentially you can be pretty sure that evolution has the tools to be able to mimic anything that a simple neurochemical intervention could also do.

Thus performance-enhancing drugs probably won't increase the overall evolutionary fitness of typical humans, because if improvement were that easy then evolution would already have made the same change the drugs make.

These drugs probably can increase your ability to focus, and that might be a good thing to be able to do now that we're not preyed upon so often. However, the idea that a simple drug could make average humans smarter in every way doesn't stand up to our knowledge about how evolution propagates good genetics. We can modify our moods, and the best mood for a hunter-gatherer might be different than for a PHP programmer, but that's it - there's no across-the-board upgrade to be had from a simple drug.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Anonymous Coward]

he's not stupid and he's a laywer, he asked what they meant by sex and since what he did not fall under their definition he could truthfully answer that he did not have sex with that women

anyway the only person who really had a right to ask that question was Hillary ...

No Different than Athletic Doping

[EmagGeek]

Doping is doping.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[I cant believe its n]

the [formerly] wisest man respects his own limits

Re: make you smart and then kill you

[TaoPhoenix]

Firstly on the downsides theme, no doctor really likes side effects. (Let's skip the really evil businessmen with MD's doing scary corporate things for this discussion.) So the Pharm companies are already trying to overcome the side effects. So you can rest a little easier that big money is already going after that problem.

It's a really slippery choice. If for example you are intuitive and you can "almost see" the breakthrough, it could give you the willies just losing the chains of thought at the last links and then getting derailed. Instead, if you take the medicine and can suddenly "snap" the last links in the chain together, you can qualitatively go beyond levels you ever did before. But maybe this kind of choice is a truly tough test of our humanity, because one of the formulas could have a pure straight-line increase in benefit right up until your brain shorts out. Could you stand for example almost understanding Stephen Hawking, knowing that if you took the stuff you absolutely would, only to croak the next day? Eerie.

Re: Flowers for Algernon

[TaoPhoenix]

Since slashdot threads run their course so quick, I don't have time to properly research this. But I'm pretty sure that in fact this is indeed happening out there, somewhere in the research world.

The problem with Algernon cycles is the effect of your passing on the world around you. The quickest example to point to is the family - if the father decided to go that route, all the way to the end, the rest of the family is stuck with a new suboptimal structure for the rest of their lives. There's an information export problem. Let's say the effect works, but the researcher doesn't get his act together and publish his results, then all that potential vanishes in a tragic puff.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[betterunixthanunix]

Slashdot must be full of coffee-drinking Nazgul then...

Re:cut short my existence

[TaoPhoenix]

The risky challenge is when there is a straight continual increase in ability right up until you keel over. Then instead of dying at 72 instead of 80, you croak within a day. Knowledge is like a fractal - the smarter you are, it just keeps on getting spiffier. Where do you draw the line at your new enhanced level when the summit of Everest is in front of you?

Over 70% of ADHD can be cured without drugs

[cheros]

I actually worked on some of this myself.

There are other ways to address ADHD that do not lead to a life long dependency on speed, sorry, Ritalin and that resolve the issue permanently . If I had any money right now I'd set it up as an organisation, as it also helps with those so-called "difficult" kids who are basically undiagnosed and get kicked into a corner - this can be done at a sensible price but still make good money.

The problem is that it takes someone with cojones to fund it, because despite being based on solid research you'll still have a fight on your hands as the revenue from Ritalin is MASSIVE and pharma is not going to take it lying down that you nuke 70% of their income - and they fight *dirty*.

Re:Over 70% of ADHD can be cured without drugs

[Morose]

I too am curious as to what you are referring to. In my research I've only come across the potential of diet as being a factor, but even that had sketchy research at best. What are these other ways of addressing ADHD you speak of?

Re:Over 70% of ADHD can be cured without drugs

[proca]

You are making that number up because the studies show that medication is the only effective treatment for ADHD. Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy has been shown to have virtually no effect when compared to drugs. Furthermore, there is virtually no additional alleviation of symptoms when medication is combined with CBT. You can dream all you want, but you're just wrong.

Re:Over 70% of ADHD can be cured without drugs

[Mr.CRC]

Then it's not real ADHD. ADHD is a neurological disorder rooted in insufficient dopaminergic neuron activity. There may be some non-medical therapeutic improvements obtainable for people without severe impairment. But for people with severe impairment, amphetamine and methylphenidate is to the ADHD brain almost like what insulin is to a diabetic.

I myself suspect that 50% or so of ADHD diagnoses may be invalid. But this is just a guess. But if I am right, then 50% of those with "ADHD" would possibly be able to be treated without traditional ADHD stimulant meds. That's just because they don't have ADHD. It's unlikely those misdiagnosed people are getting improvement anyway if they are taking stimulant medications.

Try reading some science, such as by Russel Barkley. ADHD is turning out to be one of the most scientifically well understood neurological disorders.

If you have any references to current scientifically sound developments in successful non-medicinal based ADHD treatments, I'm sure many folks here including myself would be very interested in learning more about that. Please put up some links. Thanks.

Re:Over 70% of ADHD can be cured without drugs

[cheros]

The development I am looking at is about 20 years old, but suffered a severe setback exactly because some idiots got their hands on a couple of amazing results and immediately started flogging it as a cure all. Naturally, it didn't take long for those to be discredited, but it took down the technique's credibility with it.

This is why I won't go public until I can ensure I have control over it - especially because of the benefit to children it is too important to allow such a screwup to happen again. It is indeed a provably neurological problem - that is indeed also what the solution addresses.

As for evidence - after almost a year worth of research and talking to the foremost experts in my country I decided I could risk a low impact test. There was a reason I started this research - and that reason benefitted in a fairly spectacular way.

This was not unexpected as a number of double blind tests had already shown the potential, but there are factors which inhibit this working for everyone - about 30% of people with ADHD are not sensitive to the approach. The effectiveness goes down with age, for example, but there are more factors and the diagnostic process must be improved and simplified first.

However, I wouldn't be still working on this if I hadn't seen the results with my own eyes. It's rather cool to be able to help someone against all odds..

Of course it frelling is

[neminem]

Why the frack would it -not- be ethical? Let people ingest whatever the frack they want, if it's not hurting anyone else? Now, what wouldn't be ethical is for anyone to -force- people to take drugs of pretty much any sort, including these (i.e. take them if you want to graduate college, take them if you want to keep your job, etc.), but if you want to take them of your own free will, how the frell would that possibly be considered not "ethical"? Where does ethics even freaking factor in? (Other than perhaps if they got them from a doctor, rather than on the black market, and the doctor didn't disclose side effects...)

Re:Of course it frelling is

[geekoid]

" if it's not hurting anyone else?"
well done. Everyone know that, it's an ethical question becasue it impact people beside the person taking the drug.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[phlinn]

Drugs don't alter DNA.

That ship has sailed

[tgibbs]

Most of us already take a cognitive enhancer to help us with school or work, so that ship sailed a long time ago. The most commonly used cognitive enhancer is caffeine, which seems to be pretty benign, although it is at least mildly addictive. Some people also take nicotine, which is severely addictive and (at least as commonly administered) quite harmful.

Then of course there are people who are diagnosed with ADHD. Although there is almost certainly some biological, and probably genetic, basis for ADHD, there is currently no objective diagnostic test that will distinguish people with ADHD from those without--diagnosis is by an essentially arbitrary set of behavioral criteria. Where the line is drawn between "normal" variation and disease is pretty arbitrary. Sometimes, the line is drawn based on the efficacy of a treatment, and at one time it was thought that ADHD drugs like methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine (Adderall) only benefitted people with ADHD, but this turns out to be untrue, so this also does not qualify as a diagnostic criterion.

So far, the ADHD medications seem to be fairly benign, although they too can be habit forming (except perhaps for atomoxetine [Strattera] which is probably less effective as a cognitive enhancer). I say so far, because it has been just a bit over a couple of decades since we began chronically treating children with these ADHD drugs on a large scale, so if they were going to come down with, say, early Parkinson's Disease in middle age, we probably would have seen at least a hint of it by now, but it's still a bit early to be certain.

Positive for everything

[coyote_oww]

I am a transplant patient. Prior to transplant, i was tested monthly for everything (diagnostic stuff, and drug screens through in as a bonus). I tested positive for everything the first time too. It was impossible as with no kidney function and limited liver function, i'd be disabled or die from that many illicit substances (in addition to the pretty substantial drug load from liver/kidney failure treatment). Second test, I was positive for every other drug (i.e. Yes, no, yes, no, etc). Dr. ordered a change in lab, at the new lab suddenly i'm clean.

More than just lab equipment can fail.

But, back to the original topic, taking a lot of drugs can change your attitude toward them. I don't mind folks taking drugs, mostly, as long as they are completely legal such that recreational addicts will kill or sterilize themselves. Watching them torment the inevitable children they will have is too much.

How about the ethics of the economics?

[lythander]

Drugs are costly to develop and then Big Pharma are large corporations who want to make money. If they can market these drugs to larger populations (say the smart-drug set as well as patients with degenerative diseases) the costs may come down substantially, and they may be more likely to develop more of these drugs.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[the gnat]

that's right, i just said the lord of the rings is a parable about drug addiction

Actually, I've often wondered whether Tolkein knew any opiate users - maybe WWI veterans who got hooked on morphine? I don't have any firsthand experience with them myself (aside from having my wisdom teeth removed, and Vicodin is pretty tame stuff compared to injected morphine), but the description of Gollum's cravings sounds a lot like what I've read about opiate addiction.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Simple, yes.

[TheCarp]

The real question is, when is it ethical to stop consenting adults from putting something into their own body? I don't think so. A person's body is his own, he must live with whatever it does or whatever its lack doesn't do.

I am not talking about children, or the mentally retarded of course, those are other matters, but in general, if a person is taking it thesmself, based on their own (however limited) knowledge, then I see no ethical issue.

Re:Simple, yes.

[RabidReindeer]

The real question is, when is it ethical to stop consenting adults from putting something into their own body? I don't think so. A person's body is his own, he must live with whatever it does or whatever its lack doesn't do.

I am not talking about children, or the mentally retarded of course, those are other matters, but in general, if a person is taking it thesmself, based on their own (however limited) knowledge, then I see no ethical issue.

When they take that body outside, put it in a motor vehicle, drive off and kill people. Speaking from personal experience.

An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of vengeance.

Re:Simple, yes.

[geekoid]

When it impacts other people.

Plus. people aren't in charge of what they do as much as people like to think.

Re:Simple, yes.

[TheCarp]

I don't see how this is even relevant. its clearly the getting in the motor vehicle while impaired that is the issue, not the ingestion of the substance.

That some people do stupid things doesn't justify the collective punishment of every person, preemptively.

Re:Simple, yes.

[RabidReindeer]

I don't see how this is even relevant. its clearly the getting in the motor vehicle while impaired that is the issue, not the ingestion of the substance.

That some people do stupid things doesn't justify the collective punishment of every person, preemptively.

I don't want punishment. Punishment is overrated. If punishment was all it took, we would have punished our way to Paradise ages ago. In a lot of cases, "punishment" is actually just a way of doing things that would ordinarily be considered criminal and making a virtue of it.

I would argue that the stupid thing was ingesting whatever it was in the first place. The main reason I don't have any use for tripping out is that the buzz is rarely worth the consequences.

But that's neither here nor there. Idiots will be idiots. Punishment won't undo damage already done. All I really care about is preventing the fatal consequences, and whether that's done at the ingestion phase or the getting-into-the-vehicle phase is, to me, immaterial. It's not about punishing, it's about preventing.

maybe, maybe not

[Khashishi]

It depends on how it plays out.
My first thought was: your body, your rules. You can do whatever you want to your own body, for all I care. But, then I started looking at some possible future scenarios. Assuming the future is more competitive than today, we can envision a scenario where the only way to secure a job is to abuse work-enhancing drugs, without regard to long-term health. And if the drugs turn out to burn out your brain or turn you into a work automaton, well, that's better than starving.
We should be using technological advances to improve the lives of people, not to extract more work out of them.

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[Princeofcups]

Thanks to Non-Prescription use I am not able to get my PRESCRIPTION ADHD meds filled due to the tightening of DEA guidelines on amphetamine salts. ...
I can't afford it, and unless I can get a decent job I can't get prescription coverage to get my meds, but I can't get my meds without a prescription. Mostly thanks to recreational users and college age drug seekers who want to party all night and still carry a 3.5.

The problem isn't the users of the drugs, it's the way that society is obsesses with keeping them out of their hands, which is to deny them to everyone, including those that need them.

I had an excruciating episode of IBS, was out of pain killers because I had just moved between states, and went to the hospital emergency room for some relief. I told them through clenched teeth that I have IBS, and that the only thing I have found that relieves the pain and symptoms in the past (my previous two emergency room visits) was morphine. They gave me the evil eye, and told me to sit down. After an hour or begging to see a doctor, and watching minor cases go before me, they finally put me in a room. After waiting another hour, I went to the door and yelled at the nurse "look, if I don't see a doctor soon, I'm going to have my wife drive me to the local park and buy some Vicodin off the local dealer." The nurse finally gave me some attention, and said , "now we are going to take a blood sample you know." WTF? After 15 minutes a doctor came in and I got my Morphine, and the episode was over in a half hour.

Turns out that IBS is one of the classic ploys by addicts to get drugs from emergency rooms. They expected to find drugs in my blood, but I hadn't had an episode in months, so I was completely clean of opiates. Reading some nursing blogs, the standard procedure for suspected drug addicts is to make them sit for an hour. Addicts will usually just leave and try to get their drugs somewhere else. People in real pain have to sit and endure their pain.

Do I blame the addicts? To some degree. But the real blame has to be on the so-called health care community, that is denying pain killers to people who need them, just in case they might be giving them to someone who doesn't. This obsession with denying drugs is insane.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[RabidReindeer]

in the short term, it gives you superpowers. in the long term, it turns you into a soulless ghoul

You become a lawyer?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[RabidReindeer]

that's right, i just said the lord of the rings is a parable about drug addiction

Actually, I've often wondered whether Tolkein knew any opiate users - maybe WWI veterans who got hooked on morphine? I don't have any firsthand experience with them myself (aside from having my wisdom teeth removed, and Vicodin is pretty tame stuff compared to injected morphine), but the description of Gollum's cravings sounds a lot like what I've read about opiate addiction.

Or alcohol addiction. But yeah.

alter cognitive capacity, not enhance

[ffflala]

One problem with ADD/ADHD meds is that they don't enhance cognitive capacity, they alter it. For those with ADD/ADHD, they alter it in a manner that mimics non-ADD/ADHD brain function. For others, it's more like what happens when using methamphetamines. For all the increased focus, concentration, and attention one might gain for singular tasks, one also sacrifices the broader abstract capacity needed to understand larger swaths of a field, or that required to create original work or research. Adderall might be great for things such as memorizing lists or sorting thousands of bits of metal into various jars, but not so great when it's time to come up with an original topic for a paper that incorporates disparate concepts in a field.

So if you use these types of substances through school, you should prepare to continue to use them through the course of your professional field. Otherwise what you will have done is artificially alter your cognitive abilities in such a manner that your academic record won't accurately reflect your abilities. Essentially you'll be performing a bait-and-switch. When you land in the workplace you will not have the abilities that your educational record will reflect.

So for all those kids out there using Adderall to study, to be fair you should plan on using it for the rest of your working days.

Re:alter cognitive capacity, not enhance

[geekoid]

Except you don't have to take them all. Maybe just when the single focus task is needed. Then take one.

Re:alter cognitive capacity, not enhance

[Mr.CRC]

No you are incorrect. ADHD impairs "working memory" which is precisely the mental faculty which enables synthesis of a multitude of disparate facts and inferring the logical interrelationships thereof. So ADHD meds. make the ADHD brain function as close as possible to normally, by enhancing the impaired working memory up to functional levels. Working memory is part of the executive function system, and is not the same as the short-term or long-term information memories.

Read the story about Paul Erdos. He reached a point in his career where he seemed to just not have the motivation to create new ideas anymore, though this does not mean he lost the aptitude to process complex information. Rather, his executive function faded. So he started taking amphetamine, which restored his creativity.

Re:alter cognitive capacity, not enhance

[ffflala]

Reread what I wrote. I was addressing the affects of non-prescription use of ADHD drugs. To be clearer, this means its use in people without ADD/ADHD, those whose working memory and executive function system is already at a normal level before they use these drugs: for example non-ADD/ADHD students using them solely for an academic boost.

Non-prescription? yes. Non-reparative? No.

[davidwr]

The lack of a doctor's prescription doesn't automatically make using Ritalin medically unethical.

The lack of a medical need does.

If I miss my doctor's appointment and only have 2 days of pills left and I bum the same pill from a friend on the 3rd day, I wouldn't call that medically unethical. It might be illegal and therefore unethical according to my or my friend's personal code of ethics (example of such a code of ethics), but it's not medically unethical.

A political question, not an ethical one

[gestalt_n_pepper]

The question should be, "Can an individual choose to take a performance enhancer for their own reasons, even if it's not officially sanctioned by government bureaucrats, lawmakers and voters with a vague sense that something might not be egalitarian...somehow?"

As for ethics, it depends on your starting set of unprovable precepts. Have at it. Garbage in, garbage out. Just don't expect me to take it seriously.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Procrasti]

Yet more people are addicted to, and die from, alcohol than all those drugs combined.

There's a reason prohibition was tried... there's also a reason it fails.

You make ADHD sound like a good thing

[davidwr]

Which is why, if you weren't already at +5, I'd want to mod you insightful.

Being somewhat easily distracted has both pluses and minuses, just like being taller or shorter than average. For some the pluses outweigh the minuses

On the other hand, being extremely easily distracted, or its opposite, always being so hyper-focused that you don't notice fire alarms or other important interruptions, get in the way of living what most people would call a "normal life."

It's a matter of degree, and for some, a matter of choice.

Re:You make ADHD sound like a good thing

[sobolwolf]

damn just used my last mod point - that is funnnnny!

Re:You make ADHD sound like a good thing

[ExploHD]

I agree that there are pluses and minuses to having ADHD. I'm able to keep track of a huge amount of information, however, getting that information out in a manner that makes sense is extremely difficult without the medication. Writing essays for school is a challenge because the transition from a thought in my head gets garbled by the time I write it on paper.

One of the funny things about having ADHD is that you're able to follow someone with ADHD quite easily, while everyone else is confused.

Cramming can turn a B+ into an A

[davidwr]

Many colleges don't have "+" or "-" grades, so if you will get a "high B" if you "study like normal" it's to your advantage to do everything you can to ace the final so you can eke out that A.

For some, this means cramming the night before and a caffeine our *coughdorm-matesRxcough* pill an hour before the final.

Impaired is defined by society

[davidwr]

A de-facto definition for "impaired" or "handicapped" is any physiological condition that prevents you from doing something that most people take for granted or which is pretty much necessary for living in the society you live in.

If your memory is as bad as you describe, I'd say it's an impairment, but not necessarily a severe one.

Can you get a doctor's note?

[davidwr]

Can you either get a doctor's note that any medical professional in the country can easily verify, and/or get on some centralized registry of people who should be given morphine without being given the run-around?

Use boxes 1 and 2

[davidwr]

Great. Tell me how I appeal to the DEA please, because I have been trying to plead this case for about 2 and a half years now, and so have several thousand doctors who have patients who can no longer access their medicines.
--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass

Bypass the FDA and go to the press (soapbox) and engage in the political process (ballot).

I'm dead serious about the political process. Join your favorite or least-favorite political party and work to get ADD-patient-friendly resolutions adopted and planks added to the party's platform. If you are a medical professional, lobby your peers the lobby Congress together. If you are a patient, lobby your doctor to do the same.

It may not be fast enough for your case but it can prevent the next generation from having to deal with this.

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not able to get my PRESCRIPTION ADHD meds filled due to the tightening of DEA guidelines on amphetamine salts.

And this is where your anger should lie. With the DEA. Not with people who want to put chemicals in their body which don't do a damned bit of harm to everyone else. You should be angry with prohibition.

Please avoid undefined terms

[davidwr]

Fully actualized humans

Please define this term.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[Procrasti]

Like the Luddites?

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[lightBearer]

There's a lot showing that epigenetics carry your poor life choices on to your children. So, though the DNA itself may not be changed, there very well may be an inheritable genetic result of drug use.

Re:In what context?

[lightBearer]

Or if you've "signed" social agreements not to bring harm to people who care about you then it's unethical because your actions could cause harship to those people. Think children, spouses, friends, family -- folks who are going to have to pick things up if/when you lose control of whatever it is that you're doing to and with your self.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[hey!]

that's right, i just said the lord of the rings is a parable about drug addiction

You can interpret it that way, but it wasn't intended that way. It's a story about the virtue of courage, even in hopeless situations.

in the short term, it gives you superpowers. in the long term, it turns you into a soulless ghoul

Neither of these are true. Stimulant medications don't give you super powers; those college students on illegal methylphenidate (ritalin) are pretty much getting to be where they'd be if they regularly got a good night's sleep. As for turning you into a ghoul, it may be true that methamphetamine abuse causes a serious, personality twisting dependency, but ritalin doesn't. It doesn't hit those dopamine reward circuits as hard as amphetamines do. A stimulant that was like ritalin and which didn't stimulate the brain's reward mechanisms at *all* might well be safer then caffeine.

Caffeine, by the way, is the old school way of improving your school performance. But it too is no substitute for taking care of yourself: getting enough sleep, exercising, eating well, managing your time.

Ethical? that's tough, and probably

[geekoid]

the wrong question.

Using a precription drug outside it's design use runs with it certian risks.

Add to that, when more people us it, there will be statically the same,. but more actual side effect issues which will get into the news. This will inaccurately make the drug seem more dangerous then it is. This could cause people who need the drug to go without.

Now, if we assume no side effects, or say, fewer side effects then aspirin* should people take it? I can't think of why note. I use my smart phone to help me retain data. People use caffeine as as stimulant.
The only risk is that it will be the expectation for everyone to take it.

Would I take it? why yes, yes I would.

*Which actually is troubling for about 4% of takers, who don't even know it.

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[jpstanle]

Great. Tell me how I appeal to the DEA please.

Campaign to get your pro-drug-war dickbag congressman, or even your county sheriff, out of office? I know, I know, it's wishful thinking, but maybe if enough people overcome their own cynicism we can make for some incremental change?

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[geekoid]

It's not jst in case. In some ares, it'sd all the time. AS in at least one person an hour wonders in, sometimes more.

If we had a universal health care system that just would have needed to look up your record, see you last prescription. The figure out how many pill you should have taken. The get your morphine.

Since that can't tell what you have taken, have no record, you end up stuck. It' sucks, but they have no way of knowing if you really need it. If it wasn't abused, it wouldn't be a problem either.

Re:We make machines more efficient, why not people

[geekoid]

" What has this modern environment of cubicles, GMO food, blinding fluorescent light, lack of healthy and walkable environs, what has that done to the human animal and our ability to think and work?"
it has NOTHING TO DO with any of that.
these drugs would have been useful 100 years ago..hell 1000 years ago, 10,000 year ago.

Just becasue we found a way to get us to do something better doesn't mean there was something wrong.

You stand outside naked when it's -50, and you will die. Why? what have we done wrong in the last 10 years to cause us to die like that?

DO you see the stupidity of your question?

Re:We make machines more efficient, why not people

[geekoid]

" We need more smarts around here"
careful what you wish for. More smart would be applied against you. It doesn't mean there will be reasonable things, it just means the people creating and defending unreasonable thing will do it more intelligently.

Level the playing field?

[TsuruchiBrian]

That's the whole problem with this argument. By arguing that the competition of education should be fair, it assumes education should be a competition. We shouldn't be grading people on curves. 1. If everyone learns the material adequately, why should we give the least successful people F's? 2. If everyone gets a perfect score, why should everyone get a C (i.e. average)? 3. If no one learns the material adequately, why should the best of the failures still get passing grades? We should be grading students based on their mastery of the material, not pitting them against eachother. Education should not be a zero sum game. How well you know the material should not be affected by anyone else. If drugs can be produced that help you think more clearly, with minimal side effects, then why not encourage people to use it? The fact remains that you know what you know, regardless of whether you know it because you were able to do it because of a drug. If I could magically make myself understand quantum mechanics like how Neo learned Kung Fu in the Matrix, maybe some would argue that I didn't learn it on my own. So what? If I know quantum mechanics then I can do I can perform the job of someone who needs to know quantum mechanics. That's what a degree is supposed to signify anyway. Who cares how easy it was for me. Figuring out better and easier ways of doing the same thing is a good thing. I don't understand this desire for difficulty or suffering that people seem to have. There are people that want birth control to be illegal because they think promiscuous people deserve to suffer consequences (i.e. raising a child) for their behavior. They don't consider that enjoying sex without consequences is a good thing. The behavior isn't bad. The bad consequences are bad. So eliminate the bad consequences. Even if we wanted to preserve the competitive nature of education, our quest for levelness of the playing field is stupid. By that logic we should ban computers and the internet from education until even the poorest student could afford one. We'd have to make everyone blind so that the playing field is level for blind students. We'd have to give lectures that were only moderately comprehensible to make the playing field level for foreign students. It's just stupid.

Just out of curiousity...

[tehlinux]

where can sombedy get these drugs?

Consider changing what you eat

[Paul Fernhout]

A combination of artificial ingredients in food, along with a lack of key nutrients like omega 3 fats, vitamin D, iodine, magnesium, plant phytonutrients, and so on, can really impair brain function. For more details, see for example:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-adhd.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/adhd-preventing-and-treating-adhd-in-children.html

See also for adjusting your taste preferences:
"How to escape The Pleasure Trap !"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Good luck.

Re:Need to seperate off-label from non-prescribed

[gmhowell]

Read some of his comments in his journals. Despite generally being left wing, he goes absolutely batshit, any government action is ok if it supports the war on drugs.

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[geekgirlandrea]

Stop blaming amphetamine users for stuff the government does to screw you over. Causality and responsibility are not the same thing.

Re:No... and please PLEASE stop! You're killing me

[Mr.CRC]

You seem to value liberty, judging by your last line.

Why don't you get the fact that it is the government's prohibition on drugs, and the central planning of stimulant supplies that is the reason your med. is so expensive? Amphetamine in particular is a pathetically simple molecule. With a little organic chem. background, anyone can take a look at the simple amphet. structure and just grok how absurd it is to think that it could ever be successfully kept out of the hands of those who want it. The stuff has been around for over a century, is butt simple, and should be $0.05 a pill--just ask the pharmacist for it if you don't have a Dr. script, sign a little waver that if you get into trouble with it you have no legal recourse to sue the pharmacist or manufacturer, and get on with it.

That would be liberty!

Risk-Reward

[obscuro]

I'm not much of a believer in regulating ANY drugs. If people want to use these types of drugs to enhance their performance, that's their prerogative. The least risk is that in order to continue to advance at the pace they now find acceptable they will need to keep paying for the drug. There are obviously greater risks given that knowledge is not perfect and taking drugs on a regular basis tends to have side effects and interactions that don't come out in clinical trials.

This is a classic risk-reward scenario. People should be free to take their risks and their rewards.

Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri

[dwye]

anyway the only person who really had a right to ask that question was Hillary ...

Actually, since he was being sued for sexual harassment, the lawyers who asked that question DID have the right. If they did not, the judge would have ruled it immaterial. And then they had to botch it by underdefining it.