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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