Is Non-Prescription ADHD Medication Use Ever Ethical?

I can't imagine a world where perfectly healthy people feel the need to take addictive stimulants just to help them focus throughout the day.

You joke, but it's a serious problem. We have the fewest number of vacation days of any industrialized country, poor health care, and many of our poorer citizens work north of 50 hour work-weeks, some with two jobs, others balancing college and a full-time job (and still wind up hundreds of thousands in debt from student loans). We are literally working ourselves to death -- obesity rates are skyrocketing, and the average person consumes 2.25 cans of soda per day. Frankly, it's worse for you than smoking -- each of those cans is 130 calories, and then it amps your metabolism and simultaniously acts as a dieretic so your appetite increases. I read something about how the average American consumes something like 2,800 calories per day. My weight and build puts my daily consumption at around 1,500 calories a day... which means the average person consumes 86% more food than I do. And we pack in the stimulants, along with the pounds. Then to top it off, we don't get enough sleep because of our LCD screens, 26 hours of TV a week... our lifestyles are killing us.

Now, I have severe ADHD. I've been tested repeatedly by neuropsychologists, and there is no question I have it. I have to take it just to keep pace with this "Type A with rabies" culture I live in, and it isn't easy. The side effects aren't terribly pleasant either -- shaking, insomnia, anxiety... I can't understand why someone would want to deal with these effects unless they had to. People, strong stimulants aren't fun. They will give you energy, but at a cost -- the candle that burns twice as fast burns half as long. I have to take it, and it's expensive. And I don't take it on the weekends, or vacation, etc. I take as little as I can functionally get away with.

Please guys, I'm telling this to you as someone with the attention span of -- oh look, a kitty -- life is too short. Don't take medication you don't need. Please. It isn't worth it. You're young, and stupid, and your body can tolerate it now... but you're wearing it out faster, and it's for stupid silly shit that twenty years from now, you won't care about. Stop being obedient slaves and putting in 60 hour work weeks. Stop working yourself into an early grave. Go out, see friends, see family. Leave work in the office... don't take it home.

Drugs without side effects are like unicorns -- they don't exist. They all have risks. I have a cousin right now who's a pain pill junkie. They were prescribed by her doctor. She was told they were safe, and the addiction crept up on her slowly. Now, she's on parole for five years after getting so doped up she didn't know her head from her ass -- all on legally prescribed drugs at the doses prescribed by competent physicians -- and she did something stupid. And the thing is, she got out and went right back to doing it. Stimulants do the same thing to some people -- everyone has their drug of choice. Everyone. Not everyone has found it yet.

Now I'm not against recreational drugs; It's your choice. And if tomorrow they decided to hand out bottles of Adderall and Ritalin next to the aspirin, I wouldn't complain. It's your life, it's your body, it's your choice. But please people, think. Think long and hard about whether finishing that TPS report is really worth the extra minutes off your life, the high blood pressure, the sleepless nights, and the cold sweat when you're so amped you feel like there's a strange presence in the room with you, watching. Just ask yourself that. Choose well.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/Qs7483uYlIM/is-non-prescription-adhd-medication-use-ever-ethical

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