Drugs like Ritalin are becoming increasingly widespread among college students, etc, who go to psychiatrists, pretend to have ADHD or some such, and then use them to stay focused while studying for exams and all that. My question is, do you think anybody who wants to should have access to attention-enhancing, memory-enhancing, wakefulness-creating, or what-have-you drugs?

 

I'm writing a paper about it for my science class, anyway, just curious to see what Coldplaying thinks.

Making drugs illegal does not help but in many cases makes the problem worse. And you waste a large amount of money fighting it.

Making drugs illegal does not help but in many cases makes the problem worse. And you waste a large amount of money fighting it.

 

good point

I think they should, but educational institutions and sport competitions should have the right to prohibit them.

I'd love to see endorphins in a store.

And no.

I think they should, but educational institutions and sport competitions should have the right to prohibit them.

 

This. No drugs should be "illegal", but, as he said, anyone has the right to ban you from participating in certain activities if you use them.

Ok, noonsun (sorry I'm terrible with names) asked me to share some of my thoughts on all this where I have ADD and was on Ritalin for a few years... and it turned into a monster essay because I'm frustrated and have a lot to say, so I'm posting it here in installments...

Mo's essay part 1

 

Some thoughts/facts about Ritalin and similar stimulant-based drugs based on my own experience and research:

 

They work.

The do not work forever. Eventually for some, they hardly work at all.

They work better for people who DO NOT have ADD than people who do.

They are a tool to help deal with ADD but not a cure.

They change who you are inside.

They help you focus on what you want to. Focusing on the right thing still takes self-discipline.

They have side effects. Some of those are very bad. They include insomnia and monster headaches.

They can be dangerous.

They are easy to abuse. Abuse is bad. Abuse has killed.

They're called "kiddy cocaine" for a reason. They are indeed a stimulant very similar in structure to cocaine.

You can't use them if you have a cold and need to take cold medicine. Antihistamine reactions are not good.

They make you think linearly: cause and effect. Creativity is not linear. Creativity can be very difficult on Ritalin.

 

 

Should they be legalized?

 

I don't know. I wouldn't have a problem with it myself. But then there would be big problems for others.

 

No drug has been more tested than Ritalin. If it's safe for little kids to take it should be safe for responsible adults. And because it's a drug that reflects the priorities of modern society, it would be very useful in modern society. (Frankly, I'd kind of like to see it legalized because it would force people to call school boards who over diagnose and stigmatize ADD on their BS.)

 

But the people who would want it most aren't responsible are they. Teenage brains haven't developed the ability to asses risk yet - that part of the brain develops around 17 or 20, I think. They're incapable of seeing how abusing it could hurt them. And it could hurt alot. Making it legal would mean 10 times as much of the stuff to go around. Hey, who needs to drink hand sanitizer to get high when you can get Ritalin cheap?

 

I guess before I can form a solid opinion, I have 3 big questions that need answering (and they probably never will be, at least not in my lifetime):

 

1. Are we willing to change society or do we just want the quick fix with all of it's problems?

 

2. What's to stop bosses from forcing it down all their employees’ throats in the name of productivity? And on the other side of the coin, what's to stop it from being treated like steroids therefore stigmatizing the people who really need it? Think drug tests before SATs or any major exam.

 

3. (And most important) How many more Heath Ledgers are we prepared to deal with?

Mo's essay part 2

 

Some thoughts behind question #1:

 

The thing about ADD (at least in my opinion and experience) is that it's not so much a disorder as a brain and personality style. Ask a highly organized lawyer to create a piece of abstract art in any medium depicting the emotional ramifications of the colour blue, and they'll probably struggle. They might paint a picture of water and say here, it's blue, but they won't really 'get' the whole project. Force them to work on it exclusively for a week, and they'll get twitchy and agitated. They'll have trouble concentrating. Basically, they will end up displaying all of the symptoms of ADD. Give them a detailed, ordered list of fixed tasks to follow to complete the project with minimal creative effort and they will be fine. Now a person with ADD will probably thrive with an active, abstract project like that. They can run around everywhere like a messy crazy person and still get lots of work done. If they're really into it they'll probably work at it for days without much sleep. However, if you give them a list that they have to follow- in order- if they want to work on the project, then it will all fall apart for them. The joy and the focus will be gone, and they will start acting just like the lawyer did before he was given the list. Society values organized lawyers, not abstract artists. So the latter personality is labeled as disordered.

 

ADD truly is a modern disorder. A century or two ago, someone who had it would never have been thought disordered. They were the farmers, the painters, the blacksmiths, the weavers, the carpenters, and the cooks. They built things, created things, and fixed things. They usually dropped out of school at a very early age to study a trade, and no one would worry because hey, Dad really needs help on the farm or hey, they have a fantastic future in a trade. Physically running around doing things was their strong point, and since most jobs required that, no one ever noticed if they were a little bit different. So today's disability was yesterday's need.

 

Today we have desk jobs. We have to spend 13 years of our childhoods trapped behind a desk listening and writing and memorizing. We spend our free time sitting in front of computers or televisions. We graduate from school and then we go to another school with more desks and essays and focusing on bits of paper or computer screens. We graduate from that and we get a desk job shuffling more bits of paper around and filling in boxes for the rest of our lives. The people who can't handle it get jobs in stores or restaurants trapped behind a cash register earning minimum wage, and because they can't handle that kind of work they don't last in any job for very long. They become failures.

 

Meanwhile, the manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas. The farms are run by big corporations with machines. The other formerly hands-on jobs also have machines to do them now. Most things that need to be fixed are replaced instead because the components are too tiny or too cheap to change by hand. Sure the trades that are left are desperate for people, and some of them pay well, but they're seen as 'lower class' so in today's arrogant, me-first society hardly anyone tries them. (I did. It's the first time I've ever belonged anywhere. It was like being on Ritalin without the drugs.) Oh, and to get into a trade you have to survive high school and trade school- i.e. lots of time behind a desk looking at bits of paper. For a person with ADD the entire modern system is torture. It's as bad and as unrealistic as asking the lawyer who likes organized lists and paperwork to understand and enjoy emotional abstract art FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. And since ADD is a personality trait- and therefore genetic, the decedents of all those displaced farmers and craftspeople are being born into a world they weren't evolved (or created) for.

 

Just look at the way perceptions of ADD have changed since it was "discovered". First it was a childhood disease. You had it when you were trapped in the modern school system. It was discovered around the time that society shifted so that fewer jobs were available without a high school diploma. Supposedly, it went away when you grew up and got a job- usually in the trades. Now, within the last 10 or 20 years it is starting to be seen as a lifelong disease that the sufferer brings into the workplace with them. Now look at when all the manufacturing jobs left. Look at how much more popular desk work is these days. Notice a pattern?

 

ADD happened because for the first time society as a whole began to value one type of brain function, and one style of working over another on a large scale.

 

That's where the drugs come in. The drugs are a tool that let you sit behind a desk reading bits of paper without going crazy, even if you aren't suited to it. They change how your brain processes the information. If a brain is already suited to sitting still focusing on a piece of paper, the drugs will enhance that ability. If a brain is not suited to it, they will magnify what little ability is there to the point where the person almost seems 'normal' i.e. the drugs can change their personality, but they will never work as well as they do for the person who already enjoys that sort of thing. And really, they are only targeting that one little piece of the ADD puzzle; true ADD works on many levels.

 

Ritalin targets one type of skill. Specifically the one skill modern society suddenly values in a new way.

 

So, question one. Are we as a society willing to face up to this? Are we willing to question whether we have our priorities mixed up? Are we willing to look at different ways of structuring things so that more than one specific personality type can be a productive part of society? I'm guessing we want the quick fix. Hand out the drugs like candy so that we can have the skills nature wouldn't give us.

 

It's not healthy, but it's not surprising either. Want to know why we're obese? The obese crowd who avoid restaurants eat less fat than they used to. But we all sit behind desks all day looking at screens or bits of paper.

Some thoughts on question #3:

 

I used Ritalin (and for a time one of its cousins) for what worked out to about two and a half or three years. Over that time I worked in a call center for about a year and then went to university. There were times it really worked for me, and there were times it didn’t work so well.

 

The side effects weren’t so great. If I wasn’t careful I got really horrible headaches. One doctor’s solution was to take a large amount of extra strength Tylenol whenever I took the meds. I finally figured out that if I drank massive amounts of water constantly, it kept them away. Well, more or less.

 

Another side effect was sleep problems. If I took Ritalin too late in the day, I couldn’t sleep. If I didn’t take days off the meds, I couldn’t sleep. When I tried higher doses (because I needed them) I couldn’t sleep. If I missed much sleep, the meds would keep me awake, but because I was overtired they wouldn’t really help me concentrate anymore.

 

But the nastiest part, the part that sent me running in the other direction once I figured out what happened, the part that happened when I did everything right, was all the time I spent asleep but not really sleeping. I would get in bed, fall asleep instantly, and wake up effortlessly a moment before my alarm went off, feeling like I had been asleep for 5 minutes. I didn’t dream anymore. I missed dreaming. I was tired all the time, but as long as I stayed on the meds, it couldn’t really affect me. It eventually got to the point where I was as bad as I had been before the meds, except now the moment they started to wear off I was worse. I was so sleep deprived and I couldn’t even feel it. I couldn’t imagine either, because I didn’t dream. My work suffered. There were two choices at that point: increase the amount I was taking, or try to live without them at all. I chose the latter, and I didn’t regret it.

 

Some people who use Ritalin don’t just have sleep issues like I did, they have permanent insomnia. They wear themselves out and they just have to keep taking higher and higher doses to overcome the sleep deprivation. Many of them have doctors who think the same way mine did about the headaches. If you have a problem, use another drug.

 

So now they’re on Ritalin during the day, and powerful sleeping pills at night. They are completely cut off from what their body and circadian rhythms are telling them. They take one pill to be asleep, and one pill to be awake. And they hope that their pharmacist knows to keep an eye on them, because if enough of the two drugs are leftover in their system at the same time, that can be a disaster waiting to happen.

 

Now how much more of a chance do those people have of having headaches do you think? What about other problems? What drugs are their doctors going to put them on for those symptoms?

 

At what point do they accidentally take too many pills at once and not wake up again? If Ritalin is legalized for all, how many people will go through that? How many are going to die?

Wow okay my Chem paper is going to have some serious changes >.>

 

Thank you for that, Mo. It was very enlightening.

At what point do they accidentally take too many pills at once and not wake up again? If Ritalin is legalized for all, how many people will go through that? How many are going to die?

__________________

 

Should that not be their problem? Play with fire and if you get burned, deal with it or don't play with it. How many people die in their cars because they're incompetent? Should we outlaw cars? Let people make their own decisions and if they get hurt, they can deal with it.

 

How many people die each year from all the junk food they consume over their lives? We need to stop babying everyone and let people make decisions and deal with the consequences.

 

I can't stand how people want to control others.

You have to pass driving tests, at least, to drive though -- I think if most drugs are legal there should be some sort of way of trying to make sure people understand the effects of them...

Should that not be their problem? Play with fire and if you get burned, deal with it or don't play with it. How many people die in their cars because they're incompetent? Should we outlaw cars? Let people make their own decisions and if they get hurt, they can deal with it.

 

How many people die each year from all the junk food they consume over their lives? We need to stop babying everyone and let people make decisions and deal with the consequences.

 

I can't stand how people want to control others.

And if they make bad decisions based on lies friends, teachers, doctors, and drug companies tell them, was it ever their own choice at all?

 

I never said I was for or against. I just said that if it is legalized, people have to address the question. How many may die?

 

And control goes both ways: See question #2- I'll write that rant later. But food for thought: If a teacher has a problem with you and tells you she won't let you pass unless you take a drug, was that your choice? If parents want a healthy normal kid to get good grades and force him to take these drugs with all their side effects and repercussions just because it's legal, is that his choice?

 

If a boss lays off half his staff and forces the rest to take drugs so that they can pick up the slack, is that their choice? What if all bosses do that? What if you can't get a job unless you're willing to take drugs you don't need and don't want? What happens when people start dying from that?

 

Don't think it can't happen. It's like with sports teams before drug testing was so common. If you want to compete, you have to get on the roids. If you don't, you're off the team.

And if they make bad decisions based on lies friends, teachers, doctors, and drug companies tell them, was it ever their own choice at all?

 

Yes, they make the final decision, it's their choice. You cannot blame bad information for these things, it is just another excuse. All we are is excuses now, its someone else's fault. There is going to be bad info on every subject in life, it's up to people to find the right answer or deal with the consequences. I could choose to listen to people who say cigarette smoking isn't bad, and get mad when I get lung cancer. But that does not justify outlawing it.

 

There is more than enough information out there on these for people to make informed decisions, or deal with consequences. I'm sure there are fat people who eat junk food all day and still don't understand why they're fat and going to die early, but thats their problem for ignorance. Don't dictate my life because of fools making horrible decisions and are unwilling to know the facts.

 

How many may die?

It doesn't matter. Let people die if they're stupid. If I juggle live hand grenades don't feel bad for me when I'm blown up. There are people out there who truly need help and energy spent on them to save their lives that aren't complete idiots. I say let the morons die if they are that stupid and put effort into helping those who want and need it.

 

If a boss lays off half his staff and forces the rest to take drugs so that they can pick up the slack, is that their choice?

 

My argument is people willfully choosing to do something, not forcing it upon them. It should never be legal to force people do something like that. My argument is about free will and people making their own personal choices. Making a drug legal will not cause a epidemic of people being forced to take it. That would be like arguing abortion should be illegal because people will force pregnant women to have it, is that happening?

 

What happens when people start dying from that?

 

Do bosses make their stressed out employees have a drink to calm down? Do they force everyone to go to a doctor to get xanax to deal with stress? No.

I dunno, but I could totally use that shit right now.

 

/crass

^Heh... know that feeling. ;)

As much as Id like as many drugs as possible to be widely available, Im going to say no, I dont think we have a society that can deal with legalised drugs in a healthy manner.

You're all fascist pigs!

Oink oink.

 

Western society and culture is in a shambles, people just do what they want, when they want to do it. Its why so many people watch 8 hours of television a day, have microwaveable dinners and most notably, drink too much. Giving them the option of having drugs will quickly spread everywhere, and we'll have more addicts then the Opium junkies of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Everything should be illegal. Even the air we breathe.

Yossarian must like to have spoke for this topic has importance to him.

 

Forthwith, ADHD, along with dyslexia, depression, acid flashbacks and even paranoia are all urban noir bullshit. So the drug legislation is comparatively less important than recognizing that these 'diseases' do not exist.

 

As for drug legislation, first of all we need the freedom to pick, then to grow, then to harvest, then to sell in small quantities in a bar type environment selling smoothies and milkshakes and shit AMIRITE GUYS?

2. What's to stop bosses from forcing it down all their employees’ throats in the name of productivity? And on the other side of the coin, what's to stop it from being treated like steroids therefore stigmatizing the people who really need it? Think drug tests before SATs or any major exam.

 

This would be avoided if there was a clause or some sort where it would have to state in a contract or whatever that these drugs may be used.

 

ADD happened because for the first time society as a whole began to value one type of brain function, and one style of working over another on a large scale.

 

That's where the drugs come in. The drugs are a tool that let you sit behind a desk reading bits of paper without going crazy, even if you aren't suited to it. They change how your brain processes the information. If a brain is already suited to sitting still focusing on a piece of paper, the drugs will enhance that ability. If a brain is not suited to it, they will magnify what little ability is there to the point where the person almost seems 'normal' i.e. the drugs can change their personality, but they will never work as well as they do for the person who already enjoys that sort of thing. And really, they are only targeting that one little piece of the ADD puzzle; true ADD works on many levels.

 

Ritalin targets one type of skill. Specifically the one skill modern society suddenly values in a new way.

 

Very true... the crafting jobs are now by machine and you have to go through educational qualifications anyway to get to the hands on ones

 

Nick has some good points also though.

 

I think we could make them legal... but people would go on about the stuff about users OD'ing and, of course, the government can't look TOO bad. As much as people may argue about it, it will never happen under current circumstances.