Rodriguez 1 Alan Rodriguez Kade Parry ENGL 1010 December, 04, 2012 Issue Exploration Essay Is it okay for

humans to take cognitive enhancing drugs to change their state of mind? This might be a very broad question that needs more investigation. I will try my best to describe to you the effects of a CHD on the general public and what could happen if all of society was able to take a drug for mental enhancement and the different opinions of groups of people in society. Since the dawn of time human beings have been trying to alter their state of mind with anything they could get their hands on so they can escape life and its problems even if just for short amount of time. For example, when we were children most of us probably tried spinning around really fast in order to get that buzz feeling right after. Now, as adults we tend to seek an altered feeling for many reasons such as wanting to be more productive for work, focus more on school, be more efficient in everyday tasks or maybe we tend to seek to use drugs just because we enjoy it as people. Our species has had problems with trying to alter their state of mind whether for good or for bad, thats up for debate, since anyone can have an opinion on the subject. Authorities, scientists and the government are debating if it would be okay to take enhancing drugs for the mind just so that they can potentially run a better world and make us a more efficient society. The problem with the debate is what should be the code of ethics for society to follow if this turns to be true? Considering that all people have different opinions and views on the subject. Will we be forced to take a CHD in the recent future? I will be looking into

Rodriguez 2 four different perspectives of groups in society very thoroughly to try and get a better understanding on where our general population stands on using cognitive enhancing drugs. The first viewpoint that I am going to explore is the physicians perspective, because we consider them the gatekeepers to all drugs and trust that they wont just hand them out like candy since theyre the ones that prescribe and distribute the drugs to the public. We expect that they will do their best so that the only people that get drugs such as Ritalin are the people they were made for. Of course Im sure you could get drugs underground but that would be another pharmaceutical issue to discuss another time, for the most part it goes through the physicians hands. The core of the main issue in prescribing drugs to people who do not have a medical condition is that the doctor will have to evaluate his or her patient himself since there is no regulatory process to which to judge if it is safe or not for the patient requesting such medication. They do not know if it will be safe for the patient or not regarding the side effects on the healthy population, it may seem like it might be fine at first but we know so little on the subject of giving CHD to healthy individuals and they have no idea how prescribing the medication will affect the patient in the long run. It can present itself in the future with psychological issues as well as physical ones, so the doctor might be setting himself at risk if he decides to prescribe a CHD off label to patients requesting them. (Drabiak-Siek) Most of the physicians feel some pressure whether to prescribe the drug or not. It is reported that 40% of prescribed medication are classified as off label, and that is concerning because the effects on normal healthy humans have not yet been tested. The major reason is because there is not a process officially approved by the FDA to test these drugs on normal

Rodriguez 3 healthy humans as it is prohibited because testing is only allowed if it meets certain guidelines by the FDA. As CHD can only be tested on those individuals that the medication is intended for. The concern that physicians have is that they are no longer needed for people to get their hands on cognitive enhancing drugs. There are other means in which people can get it; more commonly is by ordering it through the internet on websites that do not require you to have the doctors note, as long as you have the money to pay for it. That is what some of the students in universities are doing, some even as young as in high school to prepare for academic challenges such as the ACT. Now lets take a glance at the student view point on mind enhancing drugs, more specifically their use of Ritalin. This drug is primarily used for children with attention deficit hyperactive disorder or ADHD, and helps those who take it focus and control their actions with less difficulty; you can see why students might be making this drug their choice for cognitive enhancement. About 4-6% of Americans have attention deficit disorder according to the Attention Deficit Disorder Association (Chicago Tribune). For a while now a decent amount of students have tried the drug to in attempt to enhance their memory and focus so they can study for school and not squander doing something else. Students are calling it their study aid. (Kirby) The interesting part is that students that took the drug and were originally slackers did not do much better on the tests, in other words it didnt help. As for those students with a history of actually doing their work only saw a small increase on their test scores after taking a CHD and the test scores did not sky rocket as people would have predicted. With this research you can see that Ritalin does not have a huge effect on students taking it for those reasons, it only matters if they are willing to put in the work just as before, the rules dont change. (Deardorff) So in the end are the unknown risks of taking a CHD worth the slight bump in academic success?

Rodriguez 4 Some scientists and neuroscientists are speaking out and expressing their concerns on the usage of CHD, more specifically Ritalin. According to Martha Farah a neuroscientist in the University of Pennsylvania says that the use of Ritalin is so widespread that she herself has students that know someone or know someone who sells the CHD. I find it berserk that even a neuroscientist teacher finds herself in this situation. This is not the only concerning fact that scientists are worried about. Farah recently held a meeting with Judy Iles that works in the department of radiology and bioethics at Stanford University, stating that Ritalin is already being commonly used--many say overused--to help control unruly children in poor urban school districts in the USA. Researchers have shown that in some schools up to a third of boys are on the drug, even though many of them do not have ADHD. (Cognitive Enhancement Raises Ethical Concerns) What worries me is that almost all of the scientists agree that using a CHD doesnt seem like its the right thing for humanity to adopt as the new trend (Butcher). Farah also comments that it seems wealthier parents are giving using the drug Ritalin on their children so they can pay more attention in the classroom even if those kids are considered perfectly healthy. This trend just might change everything in society and the ethics of the people. For starters since only the wealthy would be able to provide CHD to their children or themselves, that be giving them a head start in education by cheating and taking a pill to be in a better academic stance than their peers. This would also affect jobs in the same way that it affects education, because to land a good job in the time we live in today, we have to have a good education and be bolder than the rest of the people that want the same job as us. In that sense people will be buying themselves their jobs and education with CHD, in what world is that fair?

Rodriguez 5 Moving to the last group in society that I believe might be slammed by cognitive enhancing drugs in the future, and that is the workforce. Why? Because in theory it will make people more productive and efficient in any job that they are assigned, and with that we can predict that corporations would not have a problem with making a move to implement a drug to their workforce. With that example you can see why employers pushing their workers to take cognitive enhancer in the future are not such a crazy idea. We would need to think like a CEO in order to understand this, what employer wouldnt want to increase profit and get more out of their employees? Taking a CHD just might be a prerequisite in the future to be able to get a promotion so employee can go ahead and tackle tougher tasks. That is why if employers think of taking such action, legislation would have to come in and regulate the issue, because we cannot let employers take advantage of their workers. I personally disagree on the usage of any cognitive enhancing drugs within healthy human beings. There are many reasons to why I feel that healthy individuals should not be taking any cognitive enhancing drugs; one of the reasons is because I believe that we should stay with what god gave us, or if youre non-religious stay within what nature gave us. There is no need to try and enhance our brains with drugs that were human made. I think that in the end they will do more harm than good for our society, if they were to be implemented and required in the future it would be catastrophic in what it means to be human. The reason why is because it would be almost impossible to go back to our ways of functioning in the world without the drug, perhaps it could be as hard as if our society today were to leave the automobile. I do not like the fact that certain healthy humans today are taking mind enhancing drugs that are not meant for them, but for the ill. People taking CHD could be anyone, but as of today mostly students in universities or high school that are taking these drugs so they can cram in exams in a short amount of time.

Rodriguez 6 Students that have Ritalin in their possession are cheaters by my book; I strongly believe that schools should start doing urine tests to show that no student is under the influence of any of these drugs that might enhance their learning capabilities no matter how little or how much the drug affected them during their studies. In my opinion idea of drugs are for the ill and people that need them to survive, not for the healthy. We are meant to be human, and make mistakes, not to be freakishly perfect and efficient or god like just for the convenience of society.

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Works Cited Butcher, James. "Cognitive Enhancement Raises Ethical Concerns." Lancet 362.9378 (2003): 132. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.

Coveney, Catherine, Jonathan Gabe, and Simon Williams. "The Sociology Of Cognitive Enhancement: Medicalisation And Beyond." Health Sociology Review 20.4 (2011): 381393. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Nov. 2012

Deardorff, Julie. "To Many, Using Ritalin to Think Faster Looks a Lot Like Cheating." Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL). 09 Apr 2004: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Nov 2012.

Drabiak-Syed, Katherine. "Physicians Prescribing 'Medicine' For Enhancement: Why We Should Not And Cannot Overlook Safety Concerns." American Journal Of Bioethics 11.1 (2011): 17-19. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Nov. 2012.

Kirby, Jason. "Going to Work on Smart Drugs." Maclean's (Toronto, Canada) Vol. 121, No. 40. 13 Oct 2008: 94-95. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Nov 2012.

Rodriguez 8 Phillips, Helen, and Graham Lawton. "The Intoxication Instinct." New Scientist (London, England) Vol. 184, No. 2473. Nov. 13 2004: 32-41. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Nov 2012.

Price, Momoko. "The Dilemma of Pills That Boost Brain Power." Toronto Star (Toronto, Canada). 14 Dec 2008: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Nov 2012.

Vince, Gaia. "Rewriting Your Past." New Scientist (London, England) Vol. 188, No. 2528. Dec. 3 2005: 32-35. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Nov 2012.