"The stress of competing for top grades has led to a rise in students’ off-label use of so-called 'smart drugs' like Adderall, Ritalin, and modafinil, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. But is this a negative development? Is the use of smart drugs cheating? Should their use as cognitive enhancers be approved by the FDA, the medical community, and society at large?"
From an announcement of a debate that will take place at George Washington University and be available later as a podcast.
When I was a young person, it was often a subject of conversation: Why don't they invent a smart pill? I think we imagined getting the knowledge uploaded in pill form, not that anyone said "uploaded" back then.
I'd be interested in hearing this debate, but just offhand, my thoughts are:
1. It might not be cheating, but it does put pressure on everyone to acquire the same advantage (like performance-enhancing drugs in sports), especially if, as in sports, the performance of others affects your result (such as, in law school, where grades are curved),
2. If the idea is that there is an individual right to make your own choices about what to do with your mind, then the argument that you should be free to take a "smart drug" would apply at least as much to the idea that you should be able to take the psychedelic drugs that transform emotional, spiritual, sexual, and aesthetic experiences.
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63 comments:
It's not indefensible like deflating the football or something.
#YourTeamCheats
Education is mostly learning to believe things quickly.
At one time there was a theory that stimulants would increase Air Force pilots' attention and efficacy in taks, especially when tired. A study was done years ago to test this. What was found was that the users of stimulants felt they were more effective but they were no better at tasks than the controls. Some of these drugs make the user FEEL more effective but don;t do much to accomplish it. That was years ago and I forget the drugs, some of which were probably amphetamines. Ritalin and Adderral are effective in kids with problems. How effective they are in enhancing performance of people without ADD is hard to show.
Tasks.
Brain Viagra.
I am Laslo.
Speed dealers would always flood campuses w/ real good pills, like Dexamyl, during my first stint in college in the 70's. Dexamyl was a favorite of Jerry Lee Lewis. The problem w/ good amphetamines is after you are done studying, you can't get any sleep unless you drink alcohol. And, the drug makes you drink much alcohol to counteract its effect. Great times! Anyone who doesn't think amphetamines give you an advantage in studying doesn't know amphetamines.
In the world of professional video game players (yes, that's a thing),Adderall abuse is rampant.
I don't believe Jerry Lee used Dexamyl to study.
Too many kids I have known took Adderall and subsequently had major mental health problems.
I would caution against taking drugs to maximize grades.
In unrelated news, the New York Bar exam results are out this morning and my son passed!
without taking any performance enhancing drug!
Coffee was helpful, but getting my brains-fucked-out before a college exam was probably the best solution. A mind un-cluttered of testosterone.
Nonapod, Colleges have video game teams and award scholarships. There is a segment on HBO's Real Sports about this.
Not only should people be allowed to take smart pills, some of the people here should be required to take them before commenting.
For aspiring lawyers, only if the pill is a suppository.
Major League Baseball has a rich history of using amphetamines. There were jars of amphetamines in all clubhouses in the 60's. When MLB included amphetamines in the performance enhancing drugs testing regimen they gave an exclusion for those players that had an RX for Adderal for ADD. The players w/ RX exemptions have increased exponentially since testing began.
I finished law school 10 years ago and the use of "performance enhancing drugs" - mainly Adderral - then was a much larger issue than I think anyone realized. I'm sure it's only become more widespread.
The benefit is the ability (or perceived ability anyway) to diligently study for hours at a time without getting distracted or having your mind wander from the task at hand. My friends that used it called it amazing.
The issue is, I think, that these pills don't make you smarter. They just(may)help you get over certain hurdles in the certification process - give you a brief competitive advantage. But when you're out there practicing you are no smarter than you were. Maybe you remember some of the "extra" things you learned when you were better focused, or maybe not, but (unless you take them until you retire) the pills don't make you a better doctor or lawyer. They just help you game the system. Maybe that's what you and your parents care about, but its sketchy from a broader point of view.
@Martha: Congratulations Mom!!! That's great to read!
Yes, there are some typos there. I could usefully have hit Preview instead of Publish.
"Martha said...
In unrelated news, the New York Bar exam results are out this morning and my son passed!
without taking any performance enhancing drug!"
How do you know?
I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do any drugs and never had. But after watching a few episodes of the TV series "Limitless", I turned to my wife and said, "That is a drug I would have a very hard time saying no to."
I would probably, yeah, if something worked long term and didn't otherwise harm my health. I tried modafinil (free samples!) but it didn't really work for me--it didn't make me feel alert but I did notice more of a general drive to get things done. The sleep-cycle effects weren't great, though, and the second day I tried it I woke up feeling groggy for several hours the next day.
My college roommate had narcolepsy and took really astounding amounts of adderall, but the long-term health effects of that are likely bad enough that it's not worth whatever short term boost it might give to certain people's focus/study time.
The larger point, I think, is that these interventions don't actually make anyone smarter--at best they might give someone an edge in studying and passing a test or doing well in school and thus getting good grades or a more-prestigious degree. To that end they're probably useful in acquiring credentials but useless-to-harmful to actually obtaining knowledge and getting smarter.
Barry Bonds reason for using steroids is that he saw players like McGuire and Sosa getting all the attention and $$$ or hitting HRs, even though they were below average players in the other aspects of the game. So Bonds decided to make a mockery of the game by not only hitting more HRs than Sosa and McGuire, but putting up higher slugging numbers than Ruth. Its safe to say no one will ever break Bonds records.
I've known people over the years who have not had attentions disorders but used adderall both recreationally (as a mild sort of cocaine substitute while out drinking) and to get an advantage professionally. They all claim that there are no downsides, that the drug should be available OTC, that everyone is doing it, etc. I never seriously considered using adderall, but if what my friends say about its effects on focus is true, I wonder if I've been putting myself at a disadvantage in school and at work.
I would. If a drug were available, legal, and had no long term consequences, then of course I would. If steroids were legal/allowed and caused no health hazards, then I would take them, too.
The reason college kids think these pills help them is because they allow them to pull all-nighters and get their work done. Ask Judy Garland how that worked out for her.
Serious comment: I'm a highly compensated professional in a field where every day is different and I have to flit between tasks constantly, and new stuff that needs to be dealt with pops up all the time. I also have an extremely hard time focusing, studying for any length of time, or staying on task mentally.
I've never tried any of this class of meds because the reality is that I could easily see being reliant upon them and they are already known as being addictive.
That being said, I'm still interested in anabolic steroids :)
The use of PEDs presents an interesting quandary or dilemma for some of us who advocate fewer restrictions on economic activity and individual choice. On the face of it, an individual should be free to do what he thinks is in his best interest so long as he does not unduly harm others in the process. No force, fraud or coercion, basically. But if he takes adderall to gain an advantage over competitors, has he harmed his competitors by forcing them to consider the use of drugs? Is this an unfair advantage, and what makes an advantage unfair? Is coffee and unfair advantage when your competitor is Mormon? Is being a childless man who has no reason to take paternity leave an unfair advantage as compared to a young mother who does?
My sense is that adderall use is widely accepted and something a professional person must content with, even if they do not use it. Their colleagues and competitors might use it. If adderall has harmful side effects, then I would say its illicit use by professionals should be condemned and punished by the law to protect people from such unfair pressures. I feel the same way about steroids.
mccullough,
And the sad thing for Bonds is that- very much like Roger Clemens- he was very likely a Hall of Famer before he started juicing. Prior to 1999 (when he is believed to have started- and certainly when his performance skyrockets thereafter), Bonds won MVPs in '90, '92, and '93, was runner-up in '91, and finished fourth or fifth in '94, '96 and '97; he was an All-Star every year from '90-'98 (except '91) and won Gold Gloves every year from '91-'98 (excepting '95). Similarly, Roger Clemens won at least three Cy Young Awards ('86, '87, '91) and probably five ('97, '98) before he started doing steroids, with as many as 250 wins and 3300 strikeouts. Those are Hall of Fame careers even if they finished off their last few years in relative mediocrity. (It's a little more difficult to pinpoint when Rocket started juicing).
I'm not saying either of them should get into the Hall- I'm fine with every one of these guys having to miss out on Cooperstown- but I do find it rather tragic that their ego/arrogance (some would say "competitive spirit") drove them to seek out performance enhancers because they just couldn't stand the thought of "lesser talents" using 'roids in order to outperform them and, damn it, if those guys were going to use it, then we're going to use it too and show everyone who the best player/pitcher really is. When you think about the competitiveness needed to succeed at that level- and the amount of money that was at stake for each player- it's no surprise that it very quickly turned into a descending spiral.
If you could take a pill that would make you a better musician, writer, actor, artist... wait, didn't we already answer that one? Decades ago?
I still say that most of these drugs give the user the impression they are doing better. I never ever used a stimulant in college or medical school. I had a study routine, which may have just been an affectation but it seemed to help. It did not include drugs.
Stupid moralists want keep others down.
"The problem w/ good amphetamines is after you are done studying, you can't get any sleep unless you drink alcohol."
The problem is also that the performance boost is of significantly shorter duration than the stimulative effect. Even ignoring the physical risks and potential damage from long-term amphetamine use.
Then again, my M.O. for important exams was to end study the day before, then spend the evening doing something enjoyable and get a good night's sleep. That worked for me, but what do I know?
Although one might also question the use of antidepressants to lessen the sorrow of life's expected losses (although a consensus seems to exist that they should at least be used if these sorrows become incapacitating). Positive psychology seems to be about the use of psychology not merely to deal with pathology but to enhance life. Perhaps the broader question is: can there (or should there) be such a thing as positive drug use (i.e., drug use not just to reduce or otherwise mitigate problems, but to enhance your life)?
Re: Michael K:
I still say that most of these drugs give the user the impression they are doing better. I never ever used a stimulant in college or medical school. I had a study routine, which may have just been an affectation but it seemed to help. It did not include drugs.
My impression from talking with people who do use some of these drugs is that the effect is very real. It doesn't make them smarter, but does let them focus in detail on a specific task. Provided that task is "studying" then it's extremely useful. I've never used any myself -- wouldn't know where to find someone to prescribe it, and I likely have a weakness for addiction in my blood anyhow -- so I can't speak from first hand experience, but that's what I've heard from people who've used them, and whom I trust.
They help people stay awake, so crammers like them. No real advantage outside of cramming though. I remember people taking that stuff, and they weren't better students than those who didn't. Often they were worse because they were the crammers.
It would be better - and safer - if they learned how to study in the public school system.
Not totally sure of the hypothetical Althouse had in mind but I'll assume its a super-Adderall rather than a less plausible "upload" type drug.
In that case we'd have the "digital divide" conversation all over again, and the tax payer would be force to pay for the drugs. Much like they are currently being forced to pay for breakfast, lunch and dinner under the argument that it is improving learning. Which it is not.
When put into practice however study drugs just allow the student to be more efficient and deep in their study time. Which implies that you have to study in the first place.
So the expected effect of a super-Adderall would be to increase the scores of the good students and not have more of an effect on the poor students.
The resulting disparate effect of increasing the scores gap would lead for editorials in the NYT calling for the study drugs to get Federal Schedule I listings. And the
Balfegor, Michael K,
To be fair, the fliers here in the office tell me that the USAF pilots are prescribed the pills not for "performance enhancement," but because their single-pilot long-range missions can require them to be awake for 24-36+ hours and, even with auto-pilot capabilities, sleeping and napping is not an option.
Now what I think Michael K is referring to is that, while using the pills to stay awake, the pilots subsequently report that it makes them better / more effective, but that it's not actually the case (other than, of course, the fact that they're awake and not sleeping). That is, their targeting, aerial maneuevers, etc. are no better than if/when they are flying unaided.
However, these are Marine and Naval aviators, not USAF, and are not on the prescribed pill plan because they don't do these kinds of long-range missions (with the possible exception for the Navy, apparently, being the P-8 ASW pilots, but none of these guys fly that, so they don't know for sure).
The comment above re "Limitless" is appropo. If you reply on PED's at work to produce a superlative result for your employer, and if the employer becomes aware of that, can the employer come to expect that you will use these PED's into the future when choosing to make tough task assignments? What if, having used PED's to climb over your in house competition to secure that corner office and cheese assignment, you decide to back off taking them? ... can your employer require you to?
My son-in-law's 25 year old sister was a law student go getter who was "falling behind" her mates who were drugging. She used the "can't focus, concentrate" etc dance and a doctor prescribed one. Apparently she lied about her birth control use to her uncle - he was the prescribing physician. She died from a massive stroke about 3 months in to her new found all nighter focus. She was a beautiful young woman who would light up a room when she walked in. Pity. That was 5 years ago this December. Make of her early, tragic death what you will...
I remember those anti-marijuana movies in the 60s that said pot was bad because it gave you a "false sense of euphoria." I used to wonder about that. What in the world is a "false" sense of euphoria? If you're feeling euphoric, your euphoria is real, nothing false about it. I used to do everything to excess and now I'm tea-total, don't drink or smoke or do drugs. Because I get addicted to stuff. I have an addictive personality. If a "smart pill" existed I'd find a way to take it excessively and destroy myself. I love the feeling I get from morphine after surgery. Best feeling in the world, no lie. If it were easily available I'd do it all the time and then I'd be dead. I've known heroin addicts and they've told me that heroin makes you feel so good you feel like God. I don't doubt it. Which is why I avoid it. I don't think it's a good thing, ultimately, to feel so good you feel like God. But what if someone said we can give you a drug that'll make you feel that way without any ill effects whatsoever and we can give you a pill that'll make you smarter without any ill effects? I'd say, talk to me when those drugs actually exist. Until then it's just a thought experiment. I live in the real world.
Freeman Hunt said...They help people stay awake, so crammers like them. No real advantage outside of cramming though. I remember people taking that stuff, and they weren't better students than those who didn't. Often they were worse because they were the crammers.
I can't speak to adderall but that's not really the case (or not the full case) with modafinil as I experienced it. I didn't really get a "boost" or feel stimulated although I did notice not getting tired when I thought I would, but I felt a vague sense of drive or motivation above and beyond what I would normally feel--kind of an urge to get busy where one didn't necessarily exist before. I can see that coming in handy for a low-motivation student, maybe even someone who recreationally smokes pot or drinks to excess (can't speak to that myself, either).
Dang Karen, that's very sad, I'm sorry your family suffered that loss.
"while using the pills to stay awake, the pilots subsequently report that it makes them better / more effective, but that it's not actually the case "
My example was from years ago. The more recent experience is with long missions, like in Afghanistan. There was a case where a pilot made a serious error that was blamed on the use of amphetamines. Here is the story.
My example was from many years ago. Maybe 50. There was a lot of enthusiasm about amphetamines. The Japanese army used huge amounts of these drugs in WWII to do night fighting. After the war, there were large stocks in Japan and misuse became a problem. Some of the first anti-psychotic drugs (Haldol) came from research on amphetamines then.
But is this a negative development?
No.
Is the use of smart drugs cheating?
No.
Should their use as cognitive enhancers be approved by the FDA, the medical community, and society at large?
No. But people should be free to use them if and when they feel like it, regardless of whether bureaucrats approve.
We found that whilst most studies employing basic testing paradigms show that modafinil intake enhances executive function, only half show improvements in attention and learning and memory, and a few even report impairments in divergent creative thinking. In contrast, when more complex assessments are used, modafinil appears to consistently engender enhancement of attention, executive functions, and learning. Importantly, we did not observe any preponderances for side effects or mood changes."
Michael K,
Ah, yeah, 50 years is wayyyyy before these guys' time, so I'm not going to query the office. I remember the Cannadian fratricide incident quite well- it was before I first got there, but it was quite tragic, especially for the Canadian Forces. Not sure if the go-pills played any role or if Maj Schmidt just used it (unsuccessfully) as part of his defense. I'd guess that with (literally) hundreds of thousands of missions flown, that if it does generally play a significant role, we'd have seen a lot more instances of it, but maybe Schmidt was the one-in-a-million outlier on whom the drugs had a particularly negative effect, on this one mission, after he'd used them dozens of times before. I'm sure it happens. In any case, the USAF are still using them and, until we graduate to an unmanned fleet, there may not be an alternative.
Stimulant Use in Extended Flight Operations
...
"In light of their value to mission accomplishment—especially in the absence of demonstrable negative effects—the ban on ampethetamines should be rescinded. ...
Using drugs to enhance performance in sports may be 'immoral,' but war is not a sporting event." (1997).
Fernandinande,
Fun Fact: One of the authors of that paper, Rhonda Cornum, was famously a POW during the Persian Gulf War, after her Black Hawk was shot down on a SAR mission. Her book, She Went to War, was required reading back in the day.
In addition to Go-pills, the AF gives pilots sleeping pills for between missions called No-Go-pills.
Those pills don't make you smart. They help you stay awake, and I've noticed that many students using them would just go into obsessive detail on a small part of their work, taking a great deal of time, then would be outraged that they subsequently failed the exam.
As some others have alluded to, I think the question is if the drugs are safe. If they are not safe, then there are some who would risk the health hazards anyway for better performance. The others would then have some pressure to use the drugs to keep up. If there's no* health risk, I don't really have an issue.
*I always assume there's a health risk.
Curious George asked: How do you know?
I know the New York Bar Exam results are in because I read abovethelaw.com regularly.
I know my son passed because he forwarded to me his congratulations letter from the New York State Board of Law Examiners.
And I know that my son(s) have never used performance enhancing drugs because I am his (their) mother and have made it my business to know such things.
I do have a nephew who used Adderall in college with catastrophic results. I have unfortunately heard many similar stories. For example, in 2007 a Harvard sophomore (male) was seen by a nurse at the student health center and diagnosed by the nurse as having ADHD and prescribed Adderall. He never saw a doctor. The nurse then prescribed antidepressants to help him cope with the downside of coming off Adderall. He committed suicide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/us/harvard-suit-highlights-adhd-medication-problems.html?_r=0
In 2011 another male Harvard sophomore was prescribed Adderall by a Harvard Student Health nurse, then antidepressants, and he too committed suicide.
Adderall is not a miracle drug that guarantees higher grades for students having trouble focusing on their studies.
A wise man once explained to me that you get what you measure. If the test score is being used as a proxy for actual ability, then the test scores go up but the actual ability may not change at all. People respond to incentives. How they respond depends on risk tolerance.
Would I take a pill to be smarter? If it had no side effects then sure. If you told me there were no side effects, I wouldn't believe you.
Anyway, when I need to concentrate background music seems to do the trick. That and not getting interrupted constantly. Some people are so surprised when you haven't completed a task for them after they call you every 15 minutes. It boggles.
Also, I do remember a relevant science fiction story. In the future, no one learns to read. When you come of age they attach a machine to your head and, poof, you know how to read. The twist was when you reach adulthood they attach you to another machine to give you all the knowledge for the job you have been deemed best suited. The protagonist in the story is distraught when he is denied the occupational knowledge zap and is forced to learn by reading books and the like. There ends up being a very good reason why: those that appear to have the ability to invent new things are forced to learn the old fashioned way so they don't get limited. The special ones that don't show the knack get knowledge zapped as historians, etc., and the others innovate society.
It's an interesting concept but I doubt it would ever really work. Too much danger of mind control and too much faith in identifying the innovative.
A hypothetical: Say a company really did come up with a drug that made people appreciably smarter but only men could take it because it caused deadly side effects in women. What would happen? What if things were reversed and only women could take it because it caused deadly side effects in men?
Would it be outlawed? Due to the huge payoff of using the drug (high IQ being well-compensated) would the government be able to keep people from using it? If it were legal, would its use by the poor be subsidized? What would happen if one sex were smarter than the other by a wide margin?
"Adderall is not a miracle drug that guarantees higher grades for students having trouble focusing on their studies."
The military will not take a kid who has been on ADHD drugs after the age of 14 and they must show satisfactory grades off the drugs for two years.
Adderall is dextroamphetamine. Amphetamines are bad. They take away your appetite, stop you from sleeping, and make you paranoid and psychotic. They are highly addictive. Loads of fun for a certain personality type, but chemically dextroamphetamine is very similar yo methamphetamine-- just a methyl group instead of a sugar. Same nastiness. If you've met meth users, you know how bad. You should strongly advise anyone in your lives to stay away from Adderall.
No food and no sleep is bad no matter how achieved.
The childhood ADHD drugs called methylphenidates may be bad, but the evidence isn't as overwhelming as it is for amphetamines.
What amphetamines do is make boring tasks interesting. This doesn't make you smarter, but it allows you to keep going. "Concentrate" is the wrong word-- because making you enjoy scraping paint off a dresser or scrubbing the kitchen floor for 6 hours isn't the same as having original ideas. Cranking out boring computations? Different than writing intelligently about the implications of a historical event. And absolutely, the "high" feeling does make you feel smarter because the rate at which your brain is performing normal things is higher. But still not smarter.
This thread is an example of why I read the comments on Althouse. There's a lot of useful information about stuff I didn't know, and some intelligent discussion (which, frankly, goes a lot deeper than the original post -- no offense intended Ann). This is not unusual on this blog, so long as the subject of the post doesn't relate to gays or politics.
And I'll bet none of the commenters needed an intelligence-enhancing pill.
I never took anything like that - but I would take - if I could find it - the right kind of food. Blueberries? Cheese danish? Maybe the exact right kind of cheese danish?
There's also electrical brain stimulation.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/build-tdcs-brain-stimulator/
Never used aderall but I know a lot of people who did. I forgot the color combo's but there was a path to getting a script and going from 10 mg pills to 20 mg and finally the 40s. You had to tell the doctor they weren't doing anything for you and you would get bumped up eventually.
It doesn't make people any better at what they are doing, but they can just sit there and do it forever. Helps with boring repetitive things.
There are always retards of course. With aderall they would smash up the pills and snort them. It doesn't last as long but there is a euphoric effect claimed.
Some people up above mentioned steroids. As with a lot of things they are not as dangerous as the people who want to ban stuff claim. The most dangerous part about it is because they are illegal there is a tendency for people to sell fake stuff. As soon as I have the funds I am going to visit a "Men's clinic" to see what the options are myself. If you ever tear an ACL or some other crippling injury I have seen friends with such injuries heal amazingly fast with a cycle.
TreeJoe said...
Serious comment: I'm a highly compensated professional in a field where every day is different and I have to flit between tasks constantly, and new stuff that needs to be dealt with pops up all the time. I also have an extremely hard time focusing, studying for any length of time, or staying on task mentally.
I've never tried any of this class of meds because the reality is that I could easily see being reliant upon them and they are already known as being addictive.
That being said, I'm still interested in anabolic steroids :)
First thing you do is quit smoking weed.
Weed really fucks up your attention span.
Next thing you do is start taking meth.
You'll have the attention span to take apart a motorcycle and put it back together again.
In record time.
However if your job doesn't involve motorcycles it probably won't do you any good.
Ands finally.
There are posters here that no amount of smart pills will help.
You know who you are.
@Allison:
"Amphetamines are bad" -- True.
"Amphetamines are good" -- Also true.
"The /net effect/ of amphetamine is bad/good" -- Debatable.
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