Poll closed 26 June – see the results below. I’ll be writing on this in a week or so
Would you – or do you – use drugs like Ritalin, donepezil or modafinil to improve your mental ability?
I’m interested in getting a sense of current use and attitudes, and would love as many people as possible to answer the rather quick and dirty straw poll below.
…
It’s anonymous, so no chance of your answer being tracked back to you (although if you feel strongly about the issue, please do use the comments below).
(I’m hoping to write about this issue in the future, and wanted to get a very rough sense of where people are coming from.)
Thanks!
And please feel free to circulate this far and wide.
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For additional background, it’s worth reading today’s piece in The Independent on the use of these drugs amongst students, and Jamais Cascio’s personal reflections on their benefits. John Harris’ article supporting the use of ritalin in the British Medical Journal can be found here, while Anjan Chatterjee’s arguements against (also in the British Medical Journal) can be read here.
Imagine – dope testing for PED in Spelling Bees. We are almost living in the future! 😉
Wonder how many kids would test positive – even now?
i would lmao
That was a lot of a reading before my first cup of performance-enhancing caffeine. Having been diagnosed as hyper-active shortly after Ritalin was invented, I guess I’m lucky to have escaped it once. Loved the quote in the Cascio piece from William Gibson about the future being here now, it’s just unevenly distributed. I KNOW he’s a coffee drinker; I’ve seen him clutching his Starbucks fix in Vancouver’s Kitsilano. 😉
I consider coffee a performance enhancing drug. Although mild, it is 100% legal and even though it is somewhat addicting, I know that I can and have stopped using it. After 2 weeks of no coffee, I decided that any benefit from not drinking coffee was offset by my lack of energy. I rarely go a morning without a couple cups. I do find it hard to navigate the complexities of brewing coffee before I have a cup (the classic bootstrap problem).
If AE drugs were legal, non-habit forming, and not detrimental to my heath, I would use them on occasion. I believe they fail on all three of those requirements.
I’d be very interested to try.
I’m guessing you may have also seen Margaret Talbot’s piece in The New Yorker (Brain Gain). There was also an intriguing experiment by Joshua Foer in Slate a couple of years ago (The Adderall Me).
Unfortunately, in the UK, it is generally the case that if a drug works, it is either illegal or obtainable on prescription only. So I’ve little chance to try. Guess I’ll just have to stick to coffee and cigarettes.
I have seen the New Yorker piece and meant to link to it – thanks for including it here. I did get a comment from someone on Twitter that the piece is so long, you need your dose of Adderall just to get through it 🙂
This issue of cognitive enhancement drugs is clearly a complex one, with many shades of gray. A few people have pointed out the widespread use of caffeinated drinks – which are hardly benign in their impact. Yet it intrigues me that if we were having the same debate about physical performance-enhancing drugs, the debate would be very different.
I agree with Tim Beauchamp’s perspective. A day in which I drink green tea steadily tends to go better than one in which I do not.
I also note that you leave out antidepressants in your poll. They also improve performance by increasing the availability of serotonin, dopamine, and/or norepenephrine. Why are they any different than drugs that increase insulin (also a performance improver)?
Where is the line? I think Tim says it well:
—> legal, non-habit forming, and not detrimental to my heath.
Except ‘non-habit forming’ and ‘not detrimental’ are not really points on a scale but parts of a scale. No drug is entirely not habit forming and entirely without detrimental side-effects. A drug with no side-effects is a drug with no effects (and even placebos have side-effects). The issue for me is whether the potential of addiction is manageable and the inevitable side-effects worth the benefits.
For coffee, this is easy. For cigarettes, less so. But if neuroenhancers are as good as some say they are, would I really be able to deny myself them, even if they weren’t chemically addictive?
I have no problem not taking recreational drugs (apart from coffee, cigarettes and alcohol). I’ve tried them. I’ve enjoyed them (probably an understatement). I just don’t feel compelled to take them.
But I feel more passionately about my work than I do about visiting altered mental states on the weekend. If I were to find a drug that helped me do what I love doing, but that much better, why wouldn’t I take it regularly?
Perhaps the inevitable down that all uppers have is enough to impose a natural speed limit (pardon the pun) on most people.
I don’t know. But like I’ve said, I’d be intrigued to find out.
Interesting perspective Ed – thanks.
Like you I have fewer problems with recreational drugs, but when it comes to performance-enhancing substances things get a little muddy – and I’m not sure I am that close to untangling the issues. I really don’t like the thought of others getting a leg-up because the took a hit of something that gave them a mental boost. Neither do I like the idea of having to rely on artificial means to “be myself” while working (if that makes sense). And I really worry about a society where there is increasing pressure on parents, kids and employees to dose up or drop out. On the other hand, artificial mental aids are part and parcel of society – caffeine being the obvious one. And where there is a key task to be carried out – why wouldn’t you use every means available – physical or chemical – to ensure it is done to the best of your ability?
Lots here to think about certainly when I write this up.
I’ve been diagnosed ADHD and take methylin (aka cheap-o ritalin) on a regular basis. Usually 10-20 mg every weekday. I don’t really think of it as “performance enhancing”. It doesn’t suddenly make me smarter or wittier. What it does is make me able to focus, analyze, and think in big-picture patterns on a level that my non-ADHD husband and friends do already.
“Performance enhancing” makes it sounds like a baseball player taking steroids. Like cheating. And that’s not really how this works. Unless people taking anti-depressants and other drugs to balance out inborn brain-chemistry issues are also “cheating”.
Thanks for this perspective Maggie. I suspect that there is something of a “fear factor” here that will tend to confound rational debate on these substances – where people are so worried about being outperformed that they forget that these substances enable some people to operate at a level most would consider normal.
That said, I think there are some who see these drugs as a way to get ahead, rather than just catch up.
Definitely lots of grays here though 🙂
Honestly, I’m not really sure how the drugs (or, at least, the one I take) could help you get ahead. I don’t know exactly how the drug affects people with normal brain chemistry, but (based on my experience) it seems like most normal brains wouldn’t notice a huge difference between this and drinking a shit ton of coffee.
The only way I see that working is if you really need some type of crunch-time, all-nighter work/writing/study session and you use methylin to help you stay on-track, alert and focused through it. And, again, you could get a similar benefit from coffee.
At any rate, I feel like people are addressing this from the perspective that it will suddenly make them smarter or temporarily boost their IQ or something. Better focus could be seen as an enhancement, but it’s nothing most students and workers aren’t already doing with caffeine.
I’d also note anecdotally, that I just don’t see any signs that there actually is some huge trend of non-ADHD people taking ADHD meds for performance enhancement purposes. I know people who’ve done it, but only a small handful and they really only did it once or twice hoping it would help them meet a tight deadline back in college. They don’t use it regularly now at work because, frankly, it didn’t enhance them all that much.
Outside of anecdote, I also haven’t seen any solid evidence of this “epidemic”, either. The whole thing really comes across to me like one of those New York Times stories where three people doing something on the Upper West Side is taken as evidence of a growing, nationwide trend.
I feel that I can go as far as I need to with the abilities I now possess, and I will be happy to “rise to the level of one’s incompetence.”
I’ve gone through periods where I didn’t have any caffeine because of other medical conditions. It didn’t make much difference in either my sleeping patterns or general alertness, but the withdrawal headaches were ugly.
I found this while poking around: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2008/caffeine-no-substitute-for-a-nap-to-enhance-memory.shtml
I dunno, if people working in the lab or designing experiments or coding or something were going to say, come up with some major medical breakthrough or great insight as a result of taking these drugs because they wanted to, maybe that makes it worth whatever costs might be incurred.
In college, the film majors would take speed so they could stay up all night editing.
Thanks Adam.
So here are some questions to which I have no answers (and which your comments sparked off):
Is it ethical to take cognitive enhancers in order to speed up breakthroughs that could benefit many people?
Is it ethical to take cognitive enhancers to produce work that will enrich people’s lives?
Is it ethical to take cognitive enhancers to get ahead of the (mental) competition?
The more I look at this, the less sure I am that there are clear answers here – not that I ever really thought there were.
Permit me to complicate things just a bit more, Andrew.
There’s no such thing as normative awareness. Everyone has a uniquely different way of seeing the world that colors everything they do and want to do, so speeding up some mental process in one person is entirely orthogonal to speeding up that process in another person. Some people do their personal best with coffee, some people do their personal best avoiding stimulants of any kind.
So often I hear these debates framed in terms of unfairness as a negative and social/technical progress as a positive, and I can’t help thinking that it’s all really missing the point. A person with a depressive disorder is disadvantaged relative to other people only as measured by those other people.
Someone from a genetically shorter and less physically endowed genetic background is disadvantaged relative a person from a athletic background only in terms of feats of strength. If they want to compete fairly, should the person with the genetic background that deemphasizes muscular strength be allowed to use anabolic steroids, to balance things out, or is it somehow more noble to work within the limitations imposed by the circumstances of your biology? I don’t think so. I think the nobility is in the striving, and the idea that one person must be prevented from gaining an advantage over another, be it through eyeglasses, prosthetic limbs, or cognitive enhancement strikes me as silly and puritanical.
The latest in the BBC Reith Lectures, on Genetics and Morality by Michael Sandel addresses exactly this point, though without much in the way of a satisfying answer.
If the goal is competition itself, the widespread use of drugs becomes self-defeating. The bar moves up for everyone and in part success becomes a function of how well people manage their drug regimen. I’m indifferent to the value (or otherwise) of this in sport.
But when it comes to the workplace, real problems come in. If we were able to produce everything that the human race produces tomorrow with one tenth of the workforce, would this be a good thing?
It would likely mean *massive* unemployment. You might argue that it would give more people time for more artistic pursuits. But the world doesn’t work this way. Unless you’re lucky enough to be a member of the upper class, if you don’t work you don’t get to participate much in society. And I doubt the productive tenth would stand to see the unproductive majority live in anything but squalor.
This is taking things to extremes, of course. But if cognitive enhancement became the norm, I know that my employer would not exploit this as a means of increasing the productivity its current work force, but rather as a means to achieve the same productivity with a smaller work force. And they certainly wouldn’t be improving the terms and conditions of the employees they kept.
In the short term, cognitive enhancers could well be a boon for the few who choose to take them. Indeed, on an individual level, I am well up for giving them a go.
But in the long term, if everyone takes the same position, it’ll just lead to an arms race. And so the question is not whether drugs are good or bad in themselves, but whether this arms race takes us to a better, healthier, happier society.
Of course, the same could be said of any new technology, from steam engines up.
Thanks Ed.
Think re-visiting the goals here is critical (see comment below). But as you point out, even if we could develop more mature social goals regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs – the betterment of society and individuals – we still need to develop a framework within which to use this “emerging technology” responsibly.
What a great thread! Must jump in.
Let’s not forget the best performance-enhancing move is to do something you really enjoy. Then look at what happens with, and without, a drug. I’m hyper with or without coffee, but still drink it. I don’t drink a lot (4 cups-ish), but will sometimes take three in a single shot for plain old druggy fun. If I’m not motivated, any amount of caffeine won’t help.
Now – Henry VIII ! It’s rumoured (discussed by wise scholarly historians) that H-VIII suffered Crohn’s desease – a symptom of which is very high levels of the natural hormone cortisone establishing in the blood. This is why he was full of energy and also fat in the face (the argument goes). As it happens, I’ve had occasion to take very high doses of prednisolone (100mg+, it’s the same thing as cortisone) for a three-yearly episodic cluster headache condition I suffer from, and the effect on my – already prodigious……? – work output is frightening. The experience always reminds me that we are at the mercy of our bodily, and any other, chemicals; and it’s not just ‘performance’ is it?
Don’t worry, be happy.
SORRY – Henry VIII thought to have Cushings Syndrome, not Crohn’s desease. (re last post). And all that on top of his likely syphilis.
Careful Tim, you could start a syphilis craze!!
Think your last point above is important:
“it’s not just about ‘performance, is it?”
It’s when we or society are obsessed with comparative winners and losers (who’s better than whom) that the debate over performance enhancement becomes polarized. But if instead we start to think about personal and social progress, the conversation becomes much richer – and rather more productive.
ps – will watch with interest for signs of a Henry VIII-esque physiology as well as productivity emerging 🙂