Brain-Enhancing Drugs: Legalize 'Em, Scientists Say

[sixmile]

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/brain-enhancing.html
"If drugs can safely give your brain a boost, why not take them? And if you don't want to, why stop others?
In an era when attention-disorder drugs are regularly — and illegally — being used for off-label purposes by people seeking a better grade or year-end job review, these are timely ethical questions.
The latest answer comes from Nature, where seven prominent ethicists and neuroscientists recently published a paper entitled, "Towards a responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy."
In short: Legalize 'em.
"Mentally competent adults," they write, "should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs."
Roughly seven percent of all college students, and up to 20 percent of scientists, have already used Ritalin or Adderall — originally intended to treat attention-deficit disorders — to improve their mental performance.
Some people argue that chemical cognition-enhancement is a form of cheating. Others say that it's unnatural. The Nature authors counter these charges: Brain boosters are only cheating, they say, if prohibited by the rules — which need not be the case. As for the drugs being unnatural, the authors argue, they're no more unnatural than medicine, education and housing.
In many ways, the arguments are compelling. Nobody rejects pasteurized milk or dental anesthesia or central heating because it's unnatural. And whether a brain is altered by drugs, education or healthy eating, it's being altered at the same neurobiological level. Making moral distinctions between them is arbitrary.
But if a few people use cognition-enhancing drugs, might everyone else be forced to follow, whether they want to or not?
If enough people improve their performance, then improvement becomes the status quo. Brain-boosting drug use could become a basic job requirement. "

More at link

[Deja Q]

1. It's not about what you know but who you know. "Emotional Intelligence" (aka "manipulation").

[nebenaube]

2. yeah...

Nevermind the ones that have actually been shown to grow new brain cells.

[NOW tense]

3. Is this when we start

looking like aliens because our brains get so big?

[sixmile]

4. Heaven forbid

[Sex Pistol]

5. Well, I sure could use a brain boost, so hell yea, legalize 'em!

[Ohio Joe]

6. Sweet, steriods for nerds

:rofl:

[GoesTo11]

7. This is the last thing we need.

I'll only grab for something that numbs a little.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Give me Acid, or give me Meth!

Wait, I said that wrong ...

:evilgrin:

--p!

[hay rick]

9. Smarter people on election day?

Sounds like a conspiracy against the Republican Party.

[autlow2244]

10. Yes, finally

Something that may counter all the chronic bud I've toked over the years.