Drug Abuse

Question by risanav: critique my essay please?
For a long time, medicine has helped people look young and be more attractive through plastic surgery, and now people are using medicine to help boost their mental processes. Interest in herbs and drugs which increase awareness and brain power has been around for many years. There are new drugs capable of helping you in the learning and memorization process; these drugs are called smart drugs. Scientists and students alike are taking these drugs to make their brain work better. Some of these “smart drugs” are available only with a prescription because they are designed to help people suffering from senility, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s, but the effects of these drugs on healthy people have become known through experimentation. The current restrictions on smart drugs should not be relaxed because they are relatively new, and much more research is needed on the consequences of using these drugs on healthy brains.
Smart drugs advocates are fast to support its use as boosters for all kinds of functions, this must sound like music in the ears of the consumers, but the disadvantages of the recreational use of these drugs are not discussed enough. Its one thing to say a drug is harmless and effective after using it for six months, but another very different thing is to prove its harmlessness and effectiveness under different conditions and years of use. The problems of side effects, abuse and addiction are rarely talked about, and only the good side of the use of smart drugs is promoted. There are no studies on the long term effects of these drugs when taken by healthy people. The drugs affect the brain, which is kind of important for many people including myself. What is good for someone with a disorder is not necessarily better for someone without the disorder. Since we still don’t know everything about the brain’s complexity and mystery, and anyone willing to experiment with theirs should be very cautious. Cognitive enhancements affect the most complex and important human organ, and the risk for unintended side effects is therefore both high and consequential.
Another problem with smart drugs is that people who use them would want to take pills to succeed in those areas of life in which excellence has until now been achieved only by discipline and the value of effort, achieving excellence by means of drugs looks a lot like cheating. People may say that we have been consuming coffee for decades and we don’t consider that “cheating”. However, contrary to caffeine, these smart drugs are illegal if taken without a prescription.
Using drugs to enhance your intelligence is different than drinking a cup of coffee. Smart drugs have the potential to alter the core of a person’s identity by significantly changing her personality,” says Richard Dees, bioethicist and philosophy professor at the University of Rochester. That might lead to, as he says, “unexpected effects.” The consumption of these drugs is wrong because it is unfair and unnatural. The experiences of people who use smart drug with the world are altered. “One major trouble with biotechical (especially mental) ‘improvers’ is that they produce changes in us by disrupting the normal character of human being-at-work-in-the-world … which, when fine and full, constitutes human flourishing,” Kass wrote in 2003.
“With biotechnical interventions that skip the realm of intelligible meaning, we cannot really own the transformations nor experience them as genuinely ours.” This loss, Kass argues, subtracts from our humanity.
I don’t think I could ever take Ritalin or any class of cognitive enhancing drug unless I was diagnosed with a disorder and I received a prescription from my doctor. I’m too afraid to mess with my brain chemistry. I have always relied on my studying skills and so far I have had success. I have friends who suffer from depression, and I also know people who suffer from ADD so I can see a real use for them. But for healthy people regular exercise, proper nutrition and getting enough sleep are more helpful and much safer than any of these drugs when trying to improve their learning and memorization skills.
Solving puzzles, reading a book, or learning a new language are great ways to challenge our brains. The brain is a muscle and if we don’t use it we’ll lose it. I believe all students have a natural capability to achieve and should stay away from these substances until a long-term study is done proving with scientific evidence that there are no negative effects from the continuous use of smart drugs.
The more we learn about smart drugs, the better. After more research is done and if it is found that indeed healthy people benefit from smart drugs with no negative effects after long term use, and if the undesirable side effects can one day be eliminated, eventually smart drugs may even become available over the counter.
If smart drugs are found to have no negative effects after long term use and it is found that they help people to be more able to solve impending problems, so much the better. If assistance from these substances can help increase the useful human lifespan, the benefits could be huge. In the meantime we need to learn from history and avoid the unnecessary use of these substances.
You have no idea how much your critique has helped me. You went above and beyond to find my question after I failed to email you the link.

You are an awesome girl. Thanks!!!

Best answer:

Answer by Mags
First of all, good work on your talking points and the number of arguments. And you have quoted one reference and used several important topics.

Secondly – I believe that when you posted your essay part of it was deleted by the Yahoo server. Can you add the end?

What your essay lacks is some specificity of example which would provide a dynamic quality. You need to identify the overall category of Smart drugs in your first paragraph. The “main street name” is Smart Drugs, the euphemism would be “cognitive enhancers” because in dealing with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and a host of others, there are serious issues of loss of cognitive skills at a variety of levels. And lastly is the scientific name, “nootropics” from the Greek: “noos” = mind and “tropos” = change/turn/bend.

Although it isn’t it feels repetitive.

I’m going to provide 2 links with information. The first breaks things down well so that the topic can be understood. The second link gives you the cons although it also explains what can be done to restore the brain chemistry homeostasis once the smart drugs have not only made their impact on cognition.

The 2nd resource points out that mood alteration – not a part of cognition – is a flip side that can create unhealthy situations. While you cover that in your argument, “I’m too afraid to mess with my brain chemistry” which is a statement I love in your essay by the way. You should add that dosage is a serious issue since there are only anecdotal guideposts.

You have also ignored some natural paragraph breaks which would clarify your arguments – despite what you might think – and make for easier reading…and therefore easier grading. How about a break in the first paragraph at “Scientists and students alike…” And do correct the “their brain” to their brains” or minds unless you are referring to a collective.

“The brain is a muscle and if we don’t use it we lose it” Please don’t change the metaphor in mid sentence to a cliche. “The brain is a muscle and if we don’t exercise (flex, stretch) it, we lose it’s remarkable ability to reason/process information/create/____ whatever. “Losing it” belongs to the realm of mental health in an essay with this topic.

On that topic by the way, Sudoku is better than a crossword puzzle for mental exercise – although I’m sticking to my crossword puzzles. The former makes you use your brain to reason, the latter uses memory although the NY Times and a few others have more challenging puzzles which do both.

You might want to go from the general to the specific in discussion arguments against:
This is sort of a cut and paste from Wikipedia but you can narrow it down to a simple list of 5 points:
1) Downregulation of neurological activity upon stimulation, resulting in a permanent or temporary hypoactive system and/or addictive properties (applies to dopamine, choline, and many other neurotransmitter systems)
2) Serontonin syndrome from serontonergic agents
3) Excessive acetylcholine receptor activation –
4) Heart failure, such as that from stimulants or any substance which alters heart rate
5) Organ failure such as liver failure and kidney failure

Actually part of the argument is akin to the steroid argument for athletes with a twist. Overall your essay works “as is” but lacks the visual of more paragraph breaks. It is well written and well considered and frankly a pleasure to read something with which I can argue rather than recoil in horror at the lack of thought, syntax, grammar, spelling. Kudos to you.

References to read:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/smartd.html
http://www.nootropics.com/

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