Is Non-Prescription ADHD Medication Use Ever Ethical? 487
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."
Highly unethical. (Score:5, Funny)
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:Is this different from sport? (Score:2, Funny)
I'd be probably be flipping burgers if it weren't for unpresecribed Adderall.
Re:drug use is like the ring in the Lord of the Ri (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is this different from sport? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What are ethics for? (Score:4, Funny)
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:Is this different from sport? (Score:5, Funny)
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!!