Smarter, faster, stronger

A stunning opinion piece in Nature on Monday encouraging the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs, which has been all over the news and brought me to remember a problem I have with Ritalin. I'll have you know this is completely different from having a Ritalin problem. I'm not saying I don't believe in ADHD, although I do believe it is over-diagnosed, but I'm not getting into that. What I want to get into is Ritalin. And most of what we have in the way of ADHD drugs.

The simple fact of the matter is that these drugs are cognitive enhancers. They're a couple of chemical steps removed from amphetamines (speed), which are well-known for improvement of certain parts of thinking - short-term memory and attention particularly. Now, the ADHD drugs seem to work in a select number of specific areas of the brain whereas the speedball drives an entire neurotransmission system into overdrive (to make a gross oversimplification), but people without ADHD still see an enhancement of performance on tests of cognitive performance when they take Ritalin. That's why people buy it illegally during exam periods.

I'm about to make a brutal analogy here, so cover your ears - this is like letting Special Olympics athletes go to the other Olympics, but doped up on whatever performance-enhancer is big right now. No, really. My problem with Ritalin is that gives improvement on performance of tests that we use to diagnose ADHD in in both controls and ADHD patients. We're not treating ADHD necessarily - just improving performance on diagnostic tests, performance on which corresponds closely to that on academic exams.

Most of us are already users of cognitive enhancers. During my undergrad I smoked 15-20 cigarettes and swilled maybe 2-4 litres of coffee daily (thankfully, I've since cut down on both significantly). Both nicotine and caffeine are clinically proven enhancers of performance on pretty much any cognitive task you could name. We drink Red Bulls and coffee to make us sharper, we take sleeping pills to help us calm down, we take alcohol to enhance our social performances.

Which brings us back to the topic of the editorial that brought me to this piece in the first place. Why shouldn't we use drugs to become more intelligent? In what way is this possibly a bad thing? There are side effects; many not as bad as are present in a large number of other commercially available drugs (especially alcohol and tobacco). Why shouldn't my doctor, my lawyer, my accountant, my Member of Parliament and my future kid's teacher be on these drugs all the time?

Personally, I think that the means here don't require justification by the ends. There's no ethical dilemma about taking vitamins, or antioxidants, or coffee. We already use pharmacology to improve our quality of life in so many ways, and I see this as no different than taking drugs for anxiety, diabetes, or metabolic syndrome. Better living through pharmacology is still better living, and I don't think anybody should have a problem with a better life.