Neuro-enhancing drugs: Just like Coffee?
The trappings of human experience come in many guises: music, literature, fashion, and for some of us, drugs. A recent New Yorker article by Margaret Talbot argues that while LSD was the prototypical drug of the consciousness-expanding ’60s, the 2000’s are characterized by a very different type of drug: neuro-enhancers. Medications such as Adderall, Provigil, and Ritalin, intended to treat ADHD and other behavioral disorders, have found a very different use in enabling stressed college students and task-laden employees to handle their workload. A study from the University of Michigan’s Substance Abuse Research Center found that in 2004, 4.1 percent of American undergraduates had taken neuro-enhancers for non-clinical use. At some schools, the percentage was far higher–up to 25 percent.
Three major questions arise from Talbot’s piece.
From a scientific point of view, do these neuro-enhancers really “enhance” our abilities? Talbot writes that they can make you more efficient, but can’t help you become more creative.
Talbot’s observation, taken to its logical conclusion, suggests that the values of completion and competence, rather than excellence and creativity, have come to dominate our civilized lives. Does this presage a highly efficient, strung out, focus-less, pill-popping society that we don’t want to be a part of anyways? Or are we already living in it?
Perhaps most importantly, is there something ethically wrong with altering our brains by giving them the mental equivalent of steroids? If neuro-enhancers really do confer a significant edge, then do they unfairly benefit those who can afford to use them or are willing to use them without a prescription? What is the difference, if any, between the enhancing effects of these drugs and those of caffeine?