Neuropharmacology:

One way in which we can alter peoples’ behavior is by the use of drugs. Sometimes people suffering from a mental disease are prescribed drugs in order to deal with the symptoms produced by the disease.  By taking these drugs, people can feel “normal” and live a “normal” life.  But when “normal” people who are not suffering from a disease consume behavior-altering drugs they can have an enhanced state of euphoria or happiness.  It is this method of behavior-modification that leads Francis Fukuyama to state in his book, Our Posthuman Future, that “we don’t have to await the arrival of human genetic engineering to foresee a time when we will be able to enhance intelligence, memory, emotional sensitivity, and sexuality, as well as reduce aggressiveness and manipulate behavior in a host of other ways” (56).  We don’t have to wait for that time to come, because such a trend is already “operating in the realm of neuropharmacology” (Fukuyama 52).

            Advances in neuroscience, “the branch (as neurophysiology) of the life sciences that deals with the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, or molecular biology of nerves and nervous tissue and especially with their relation to behavior and learning” (Merriam-Webster) has brought about the rise of neuropharmacology. Briefly stated, neuropharmacology is “a branch of medical science dealing with the action of drugs on and in the nervous system” (Merriam-Webster).  It is advances in this area of science that allows psychiatrists to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs that can help people suffering from a range of mental disorders.  While these drugs are tailored, specifically, to treat symptoms of a particular mental disease, these drugs have the potential to affect “normal” behavior as well.  For a “normal” and healthy person to take pharmaceuticals that are designed strictly for people suffering from a disorder is to, therefore, “blur the line between therapy and enhancement” (Fukuyama 49).  It is the over-prescribing and abuse of pharmaceutical drugs that makes neuropharmacology just one of the many biotechnological threats to mankind. 

The use of pharmaceuticals as an “enhancement” drug, rather than a therapeutic drug, is a threat because it has the potential to control and monitor the behavior of society at large.  If people begin taking drugs in order to enhance their “natural” and “normal” state in order to feel “better than good”, certain political and social powers are then given the opportunity to take advantage of peoples’ drug-induced tolerance (Fukuyama 46).  Therefore, it is essential that we take strong pre-cautions when prescribing drugs and also that we strongly regulate the operations of neuropharmacology. 

In order to better understand how and why the misuse of therapeutic drugs may be the gateway to designing strictly enhancement drugs in the future, we must take a look at a current trend in society.  This trend is the extreme use of behavior-modifying psychotropic drugs like Prozac and Ritalin.  Psychotropic drugs are drugs that act on or affect the mind.  Some examples of these drugs are Ritalin and Prozac. Some 28 million Americans, 10 percent of the entire population, are taking Prozac (Fukuyama 43).  “Based on production/use quotas maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration and national physician practice surveys, it's possible to say with confidence that nearly 4 million children took the stimulant drug Ritalin, or its equivalent, in 1998 (Diller).  What problems can arise when psychotropic drugs, like Ritalin, are inappropriately used to positively enhance the moods and behavior of millions of “normal” people?   I will explain how the widespread use of Ritalin, in particular, can, in fact, lead to social control.

Ritalin is “the trademark name of methylphenidate, a stimulant closely related to methamphetamine” (Fukuyama 46).  Methamphetamine is a street drug referred to as “speed”.  Ritalin is prescribed to children, mainly young boys, who allegedly suffer from a syndrome known as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  ADHD is a “disease” that causes poor attention and inappropriate hyperactive behavior (Stein xv).  There are people who are advocates for Ritalin, as well as people who strongly oppose the use of such a drug.  For example, Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. and John J. Ratey, M.D. state in their book, Answers to Distraction, that when Ritalin works, the medicine helps people with ADHD pay attention and focus better then they did without the drug (55).  They state that it makes it easier for children to pay attention in school and at home (55).  On the other hand, David B. Stein, Ph.D. states in his book, Ritalin Is Not The Answer, that Ritalin is simply an amphetamine that only camouflages the problem (24).  Stein gives many examples of the short and long-term side effects that occur after taking the drug.  Some short-term side effects in children include: insomnia, tearfulness, rebound irritability, toxic psychosis, personality changes, nervousness, fever, nausea, and heart palpations (27).  One of the long-term side effects is that Ritalin interferes with normal growth in children by interfering with growth hormones (28).  Stein states that Ritalin is a “chemical restraint” and that putting millions of children on Ritalin it is a dangerous trend (xvi).  Despite this negative outlook on Ritalin, I am going to ignore such opposition in order to address the greater issue at hand.  I will, therefore, concede that Ritalin, taking strictly for therapeutically purposes has helped many children who suffer from ADHD.  Having said that, I believe that the dangers of Ritalin stem from the mis-diagnosis of ADHD and the over-prescription of the psychotropic drug.

Fukuyama states that certain psychotropic drugs, like Ritalin, are helpful to many people who cannot, in any other way be helped.  Some people have a biological condition that prevents them from enjoying a “normal life” (53, 54).  However, as Fukuyama implies, we should be concerned about “the use of such drugs either for ‘cosmetic pharmacology’, to “enhance” otherwise normal behavior, or to exchange one normal behavior in favor of another that someone thinks is socially preferable” (54).

The reason why we see such a high rate of people on Ritalin is, according to Fukuyama, due to three powerful political trends or forces that have pushed forward new medical technologies (52).

“The first is the desire on the part of ordinary people to medicalize as much of their behavior as possible and thereby reduce their responsibility for their own actions.  The second is the pressure of powerful economic interests to assist in this process.  These interests include social service providers such as teachers and doctors, who will always prefer biological shortcuts to complex behavioral interventions, as well as pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs. The third trend, which flows from the attempt to medicalize everything, is the tendency to expand the therapeutically realm to cover an even larger number of conditions.” (53).

Fukuyama fears that such trends may lead to a future of personality shaping designer drugs (8).  “In the future, knowledge of genomics permits pharmaceutical companies to tailor drugs very specifically to the genetic profiles of individual patients and greatly minimize unintended side effects” (8).  In other words, people will have the availability of any desired emotional state without any tangible or physical side effects.  The danger of such futuristic drugs is that people may become blind to the more powerful and targeted effects because of their complacence (Fukuyama 53).  Fukuyama uses the term “social control” to explain this idea. The term social control  “conjures up right-wing fantasies of governments using mind-alerting drugs to produce compliant subjects” (53).  Social control can also be implemented by social players such as- parents, teachers, school systems, and others who have “vested interests in how people behave” (Fukuyama 53).  We expect people to conform to a certain identity that society deems fit. 

Fukuyama makes reference to the book, Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, in order to show the possible effects that “enhancement” drugs can have on the nature of human beings.  In the book, Brave New World, the government gives people a drug called “soma” in order to keep them happy, and hence, quiet (Fukuyama 46).  The people take it because it makes them happy and gives them instant gratification and the government wants people to take it because it makes society a lot more tame and non-confronting.  They become complacent in their detached state of “happiness”.  There are correlations between “soma” and the psychotropic drugs that we are on the way to making and using in the future. They are similar in the sense that they create a pretense state of euphoria that is helpful, to political and social powers, in masking the harmful and powerful effects created by the very use of these behavior-modifying drugs. The use of such drugs has the potential to create a stance of complacence in a world that needs human beings to be socially responsible. It is imperative to the rights of human beings that we do not let ourselves become dissolved by these man-made drugs.  We need to regulate the business and institution of neuropharmacology before behavior-modifying drugs begin to regulate us.

WORKS CITED

Diller, Lawrence H., M.D. "Kids on drugs. " Salon.com. 9 March 2000. Salon Media Group, Inc. 13 Dec. 2002. <http://archive.salon.com/health/feature/2000/03/09/kid_drugs/>.

Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002.

Hallowell, Edward M., M.D., and John J. Ratey, M.D.Answers to Distraction. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated.  13 Dec 2002. http://www.m-w.com/

Stein, David B., Ph.D.Ritalin Is Not The Answer:  A Drug-Free, Practical Program for Children Diagnosed with Add or ADHD.   San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 1999.

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