Scientists are abusing mental performance enhancing drugs. | Hacker News Reader

Scientists are abusing mental performance enhancing drugs.

webmd.com

20 pointstx57 comments

Where did you get "abusing"? That word appears nowhere in the article.

What else you call it when a healthy individual takes pills, sometimes a combination of, that are manufactured for ADD patients?

"using".

"Abusing" is a subjective opinion in this case.

Mental enhancement?

Scientists aren't athletes. Discovery isn't a zero sum game. If we want to go by med labels, I think we should remember that rationality isn't the great driving force of American drug law.

Then let scientists take whatever drugs they want. Pot, heroin, cocaine, PCP, LSD, peyote, mushrooms, Vicodin, whatever. Taking prescribed medication for a use other than for which it was prescribed is illegal. So, by your logic, what's the difference?

The untold story is why do scientists feel the need to take medication to (temporarily) enhance their cognitive capabilities. I conjecture it is oversupply of them competing for fewer dollars and fame-producing discoveries, and/or most of them really aren't that smart to begin with (despite passing tests to get advanced degrees).

It's pretty close to the intended, prescribed use. If you can't focus on your work to the extent that allows you to compete with your peer group, you get prescribed Ritalin/Adderall.

I agree. We should allow scientists to take whatever drugs they want. Let's add everyone else, for that matter. (I think the steroid question is idiotic, especially as supplementation has become safer.)

Here's another secret. many professional musicians use beta blockers to steady their hands. They're beating out someone who has superior genetics! Pasta-forbid!

It's wetware hacking, and it works. (I'll admit to trying modafinil and realizing it wasn't for me -- never tried ritalin/adderall though.)

So, anyone can take any drug they want, but steroids are idiotic? Why? Are you discriminating between scientists and non-scientist bodybuilders? Or are you singling out steroids as unacceptable and anything else as acceptable?

It's not "wetware hacking" (whatever that means, but it sounds cool). It's biochemistry, and it doesn't always work.

The difference between this and the athletic thing is that it gives athletes an unfair advantage in competitions, whereas science is not primarily competitive.

I was just looking through the archive and saw this. What I meant was that the idea of steroids as an illegal substance was idiotic. The dangers of steroids are overstated with the newer generation of steroids in moderate doses (IE - below ronnie coleman levels.) Controlling insulin levels personally scares me, but I don't consider that as something to make illegal either.

My perspective is that people should have the right to use these chemicals on their bodies as they see fit. Now, if a private company wants to limit those working for their companies from ingesting such chemicals, I agree that it should be their option. (The NFL should be allow to test for steroids, for example.) I also agree that these chemicals should be limited to those whose bodies have matured.

However, I think it's idiotic to control what an adult does with his or her body if it doesn't affect another individual.

Slavery was illegal too: so by your logic, to free a slave was to abuse him.

This is nothing new. http://amphetamines.com/paul-erdos.html

I am sure that the vast majority of us use/abuse drugs. To what extent is the only question.

For example, after years of avoiding it, I have quickly settled in to the caffeine routine. Coffee in the morning, occasionally a soft drink in the evening. While this is hardly risky behaviour, it is drug use.

I personally would consider using different drugs more regularly. Jet lag really can be a killer, so I would take something when travelling if there was a good option I was aware of.

Personally I am strongly against certain drugs being prescription and unavailable to informed individuals. It makes it seem like these drugs are entirely safe when prescribed by a doctor and unsafe if people get them through other means. I have some heavy painkillers that were legally acquired but not prescribed by a doctor, and I use them in a very safe way for my occasional intense back pain. I know many people on the same pain killers who take them in an irresponsible way as prescribed by their doctor.

It is a topic that I think we need to try and avoid looking at it with such a narrow vision. I also think a lot of illegal drugs are no more dangerous than legal drugs, but that is another topic.

"For example, after years of avoiding it, I have quickly settled in to the caffeine routine. Coffee in the morning, occasionally a soft drink in the evening. While this is hardly risky behaviour, it is drug use."

But it's not illegal drug use. You are lumping together taking an aspirin for a headache in with taking ADD drugs illegally to enhance mental focus. Having a coffee is not drug use, despite it having caffeine.

It doesn't matter if you think a lot of illegal drugs are no more dangerous than legal drugs. If you compare the effective and lethal doses of pot and booze, you'll find booze is much deadlier. What matters is the rule of law.

Using illegal as a matter of consideration is ridiculous. Illegal in what country? Why is the drug illegal? Taking aspirin for a headache IS the same as taking ADD drugs.

Having coffee specifically for the caffeine boost IS drug use.

What I am saying is that the rule of law doesn't matter, and as you suggest with the pot/booze example it is often backwards. Booze is much deadlier and more dangerous for personal use than pot, no question when you consider lethal dose.

Legality of drugs would be a small afterthought if I considered taking something like ADD for concentration. 99% of the consideration would be my personal health and safety including long term side effects.

Illegal in the U.S. Your country may have different rules.

Taking aspirin is the same as taking Ritalin for ADD. It is not the same as taking it for a use for which it is not prescribed.

Logic notwithstanding, the law sure as hell does matter. Try breaking it, getting caught, and doing time.

I strongly doubt taking Ritalin without a prescription is grounds for jail time in many countries.

Why does it matter if a drug is prescribed or not? Who has the right to establish which drugs require prescriptions?

I believe in freedom. Freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom of living your life how you choose. I believe anyone should be allowed to consume any substance they desire. If Ritalin improves your research as many of these people think, who has the right to stop them? They aren't harming anyone else, and are possibly helping.

I, too, believe in freedom. But freedom doesn't absolve you of personal responsibility for your actions. If anyone could consume any substance they desire, it would have a detrimental effect on some basic level of social order (and I'm not talking about government or top-down control) and it would have a negative impact on other's freedoms and rights. That's why many drugs are banned and why people aren't allowed to drive while intoxicated (despite it being an act of freedom to live your life as a drunk). And I won't need a lecture on libertarianism, thank you, which many people seem to confuse with lawlessness.

I'm not sure what else there is to debate about Ritalin. If you want to be a dopehead scientist, have at it. When the long-term effects start to manifest themselves in physical or mental conditions we aren't aware of, don't start whining for the FDA or an attorney to sue the drug maker.

>That's why many drugs are banned

I bet you also bought the government's line about the war on drugs.

>If you want to be a dopehead scientist You're using ad hominem instead of logic. And I expect you still haven't said the real reason you are so strongly in favor of drugs, because none of the reasons you have given have made any sense.

"You're using ad hominem instead of logic. And I expect you still haven't said the real reason you are so strongly in favor of drugs, because none of the reasons you have given have made any sense."

Ok, let me rephrase it: "if 'someone' wants to be a dopehead scientist, then go for it." The rest of the quote still applies and is not ad hominem.

No sense to you, perhaps. Something about not using illegal drugs and not using legal drugs illegally makes sense to me. "Off the label" prescriptions are not always legal, btw.

Does the reasoning that it's ok to use Ritalin to give smart people a mental edge imply it's ok for athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs? Why not, if steroids and growth hormones are legal for other uses? Others in this thread have implied that steroids are idiotic.

Because you are all smart people, you realize that once a few people start doping up on Ritalin and getting better results on grant applications, journal papers, and other tasks, that everyone will pretty much have to join the dope show and take the same drugs. Taking these drugs will become a barrier to entry in order to do science. Eventually, those who want a new mental edge will have to find a new drug, then everyone will take that. That will only go a few rounds before people start destroying their brains and their bodies. Scientists will become junkies and that will do no good for anyone in the long term.

Ultimately, if someone wants to take Ritalin or whatever to give them a mental edge, nothing I say here will convince them otherwise. Personally, I don't understand why anyone would need mental enhancement pharma given the assumption that they are already brilliant to begin with. Maybe that's a bad assumption for me to make (oh damn, that was ad hominem :)

The argument advanced elsewhere in the thread is that it is fine for scientists to take Ritalin because cancer may be cured faster. It's not a competition.

You still seem to be stuck on the legal versus illegal thing. I sell kratom on a website. Kratom is a drug-like herb that is a stimulant and an opiate. It could be used as a drug to enhance mental performance.

Is kratom acceptable because it is legal? Or is it unacceptable because it is fundamentally more powerful than caffeine?

To the contrary, scientific research is very, very competitive. There is a lot of competition to be first to discovery, first to publish, first to patent, and to win grants. This is especially true for cancer research.

I don't know anything about kratom. If you can legally sell it to enhance mental performance, be my guest. We aren't discussing herbs, though. We are discussing use of medicines prescribed for ADD by people without that condition in order to increase mental focus.

Regardless of your, my, or any other opinions on the matter, the fact is that use of prescription drugs for purposes other than which they are prescribed is illegal. That is my whole point. Doctors get into trouble all the time for writing scripts for pain killers to abusers in exchange for money (or sex). Don't blame me if you don't like the law; I didn't enact it.

BTW, in the same thread, I provide links to research on the long-term effects of Ritalin, a Schedule II drug. Most of the results indicate long-term abusers suffer effects similar to cocaine abuse and depression.

But is there a good reason not to prescribe these drugs to anyone who wants to use them for extra mental focus?

It seems to me that if they are safe for use long term, there's no good reason to ban them.

I don't know if there is a good reason and I don't know if they are safe for long term use. What I do know is that using them for non-prescribed uses is illegal, as are painkillers, HGH, and other drugs. If you guys don't like that, then lobby the FDA to do studies for general use and make them legal for general use. That's the point of my posts.

They are legal for general use, as long as they are prescribed by a doctor. It is the "off-label" loophole: once a medication is approved for a specific use doctors can prescribe it for whatever they want.

Is this true with regard to all drugs, and for all reasons? For example, could a physician decide to prescribe narcotics for anxiety? Or an athlete steroids to increase performance?

I will also ask again whether these drugs should be illegal. From my point of view, it seems logical that anybody should be able to use whatever drugs they want, so long as that drug use does not affect others. So, for example, heroin would remain illegal due to the strong negative externality imposed on a community by heroin users.

Mental performance enhancing drugs don't seem to have any negative externality associated with their use. In fact, the argument could be made that by furthering scientific discovery, they actually have a net positive effect.

I find no compelling evidence in favor of the prohibition of these drugs.

Here is some evidence against using these drugs for recreational/non-ADHD use:

http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/ritalin.asp

http://www.biopsychiatry.com/methylphenidate/ritalin.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/4870.php

http://amphetamines.com/methylphenidate/brain.html

Yes, there are some very real negative effects of hard stimulants. These studies are all for sustained use. What about someone who wants to take a ritalin or amphetamine every couple of weeks to have a super productive day?

Hard stimulants have the same negative effects on people who doctors prescribe them to too.

So, a developing child a doctor decides has ADD will experience these, and probably worse if it impacts development.

But what business is it of mine whether someone wants to destroy themselves with drugs? As long as that person is only harming himself, and not others, why should the government get involved?

>For example, could a physician decide to prescribe narcotics for anxiety? Or an athlete steroids to increase performance?

I think it comes down to the doctor's judgement, and them wanting to stay in the good graces of the DEA. The DEA has really come down on doctors that prescribe opiates lately, so I doubt very many doctors would prescribe unnecessary opiates for anxiety when a benzodiazepam or SSRI would be better served.

For steroids, they aren't really illegal, right? They're just scheduled and banned in athletic competition. I think most athletes that use steroids are probably prescribed them by a doctor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use (though it looks like it needs some work)

The only thing about the rule of law here is not getting caught. These laws are about controlling the population, not protecting them.

Here is where your "illegal drugs" thinking goes: http://www.reason.com/news/show/124947.html

"But a third of respondents said they would feel pressure to give such drugs to their children if other children at school were taking them."

Apparently a third of the respondents are big dorks.

This is an interesting argument. From a libertarian standpoint, I have the freedom to take whatever actions I want, so long as those actions don't interfere with the freedom of others.

Now, science is not a zero-sum game, but school is. There are a limited number of spots in top universities, and the pressure to get one of those spots is enormous.

So if my peers are all using study drugs, then I would be compelled to use those drugs to remain competitive. So their use of the drugs would interfere with my freedom of choice.

I guess I don't really understand the point. What ever happened to learning for its own sake?

Ahh, but would their use of drugs interfere with your freedom of choice more than a flat-out ban would?

"So if my peers are all using study drugs, then I would be compelled to use those drugs to remain competitive. So their use of the drugs would interfere with my freedom of choice."

Not only that, but the playing field among you and your peers returns to parity except the cost is that everyone needs to take study drugs to keep up.

"So their use of the drugs would interfere with my freedom of choice."

You are not entitled to particular choices, but are free to choose among what others may have made available.

It's no violation of rights that you don't get the choice you might prefer. If I get to the movie's five minutes before you, and take a seat you may have wanted, I'm not violating any of your rights of free choice because I parked my ass in a chair before you could.

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/makingchoices/index.htm

also read that scientists that drink beer are dumber and produce worse research...

That widely-reported study was well-skewered here:

http://life.lithoguru.com/index.php?itemid=119

May still be true, I don't know, but the study fodder that created the headlines a while back was flimsy.

Let's be honest.

Our culture has a completely hypocritical attitude towards drug use. The people who make the drug laws are either idiotic or spineless politicians, the people who enforce them are sadistic bullies, and the people who support the system are uninformed morons, latent Fascists or nosy busybodies.

In fact the entire drug war is actually a proxy for a cultural conflict between conformist and nonconformist elements in society. It's common for conforming bullies to be enabled to abuse nonconforming weird kids by school authorities. The drug war is that at a huge scale.

A few commonly seen fallacies include that use does not mean abuse. Use can be beneficial (see Carl Sagan, Steve Jobs). Abuse is not always a net negative (see, Paul Erdos, the rock and roll hall of fame). Addicts can function fine in society (cofounder of hopkins).

If some scientist looking for a cancer cure wants to take speed or provigil to help them work, more power to them. Do you want to tell families suffering from Alzhihmers that their cure was delayed because the best researcher was arrested for taking ADD medication to hold the complexities of the disease in her memory as she worked on a cure? How much time should a cancer researcher, using a mental performance booster and trying to find a cure be put in jail?

In fact, I would argue that, for brilliant scientists working on saving lives, the obligation to dedicate themselves fully to their work in much more pressing then the obligation to follow idiotic, racist, superstitious laws. In fact, much scientific progress came from scientific people breaking dumb superstitious laws and societal conventions. See, for example, early researches in anatomy, which the church treated as unholy, or early research in astronomy. So if researchers (particularly researchers who save lives) want to do this, it's part of a long, illustrious tradition of ignoring irrational rules to get science done.

But then I care more about progress and a cure for these things then the particulars of what metabolites are in the urine of the researchers that found it. Maybe I'm deviant confused and unethical that way.

It's a much less noble cause, but I've made a similar argument in regards to professional athletes using steroids.

Sure steroids can seriously screw up your body, but some of these guys are making millions of dollars a year for their physical performance. There's nothing immoral about letting these guys trade long term health for shorter term physical performance and loads of money.

The difference with athletes is that they're playing already circumscribed games. Since everyone has to obey artificial rules, there's no harm in making the rules prevent damage to the players. In fact it's hard to think of a sport that doesn't already have rules of this type.

Winning in games is by definition relative. But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better.

I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports.

Certainly, I only bring up the sports example in attempt to strengthen the case for mental enhancement. Interestingly, your argument comes to bear on drug use in school since competition there is also relative.

"I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports."

This could mean several things. i'm curious what you think about a few cases that make explicit some of the ambiguities.

1 A person has debilitating OCD and is prescribed ritalin by a psychiatrist, which they take daily, so they can function.

2 A healthy person at the top of their field takes ritalin and other stimulaties daily over his career to enhance performance, prescribed by a physician. Cannot perform at the top of his field without it.

3 A person has debilitating OCD, is uninsured, and self medicates by taking illicitly obtained psilocybin mushrooms 6 times a year. (studies show that psilocybin reduces symptoms of OCD for longer then a month).

4 A person has treatment resistant cluster headaches that stops them from thinking. Their treatment provider informs them that their best bet is probably psychedelic mushrooms, which must be obtained illicitly.

5 A person has a psycho-spiritual crisis after finding out their religious leader is a fraud, and takes illicit LSD in the aftermath with confused and possibly self destructive intentions. Partly as a result of this experience, their psychology is permanently altered in a way that makes their thinking better.

6 An alcoholic uses illicitly obtained LSD to induce the kind of spiritual experience his psychologist said correlated with a relapse of alcoholism.

7 A musician takes illicit drugs as part of the creative process.

8 A musician takes prescribed drugs not according to directions as part of the creative process.

1 happens all the time. 2 similar to Paul Erdos. 3 happens occasionally, people can be jailed. adulterants possible. 4. happens occasionally, Jail, adulterants possible. 5 similar to Steve Jobs. Jail, adulterants possible. 6 similar to Bill Wilson, founder of AA (Jung advised him years earlier a genuine spiritual experience was the best hope for treating alcoholism.) Jail, adulterants possible. 7. happens all the time (see: jazz, rock.) Jail, adulterants possible 8. Similar to Glenn Gould. Jail possible (unlikely)

(ritalin isn't prescribed for OCD. My bad, should of said ADHD, but too late to edit)

Ritalin is prescribed for OCD occasionally. It's just not an advertised use.

I thought so. Then I couldn't find nothing to back it up. Cause it's off label and I didn't look hard.

"But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better." This would suggest that one could argue that all children should be given these medicines starting in kindergarten. One could argue that on the basis of US competitiveness in a global economy.

Taking these arguments to their logical conclusions gives me flash backs to Huxley.

That's one reason I explicitly said that I didn't advocate using drugs for such purposes.

I know. I caught that. My point is that is the kind of logic that the rest of society might latch onto. The risk is that study drugs are at a non-trivial risk of being perceived as a silver bullet for the larger societal problem of deficient school systems and American competitiveness. Maybe it wouldn't be mandated but it might be encouraged.

This entire discussion is making me want to go take a pill.

We should be openly advocating for brain performance boosting. An open debate would include clear admission that many of today's drugs have side effects that outweight the benefits. Those drugs that have net positive benefits are used by billions of people, e.g. cafeine.

We need to significantly and openly fund a search for a drug like meth that doesn't make you go batshit crazy.

> Since everyone has to obey artificial rules, there's no harm in making the rules prevent damage to the players.

You're begging the question here. Many of these drugs are overwhelmingly beneficial -- e.g. Human Growth Hormone. Prohibiting it makes about as much sense as prohibiting surgery; it's used to promote healing of injuries. If they cared about damage to players, its use would be encouraged. Reducing recovery time means they are playing and making money for the sport rather than laid up for months and just cashing checks. I would argue you have a moral duty to yourself to use any and all means to get better, and anyone who argues you should remain injured longer has no moral basis to stand on.

Baseball's rules are simply about image in this "drug war" climate. It's extremely hypocritical; Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds likely made a fortune for the league with all the excitement about breaking home run records.

It's also uncomfortably Übermensch-ish. If you disallow this type of enhancement, you're leaving it up to whoever was born with favorable genetics. It's not even about who trains the hardest -- someone with better genetics can do less work and get better results than someone else who works his tail off.

Additionally, there is a wide range of performance-enhancing substances, some of which are well-studied and can be safely taken under medical supervision. However, the well-known ones are typically the ones they test for and prohibit, which drives the practice underground and spurs development of experimental new substances of dubious safety.

And realistically, in order to compete in many sports today, you need both the genetics and the pharmaceutical enhancement. Thus the biggest threat to athletes' physical health is the prohibition of well-understood substances and the legal pressure on doctors which makes it difficult for an athlete to get the proper medical supervision. The system simply does not reward people who either lack superior genetics or the willingness to use these substances.

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