Neuroenhancing Drugs By Margaret Talbot Summary

With the mounting stress imposed by the conditions at work, “Jackie began to divert narcotics. Jackie was able to justify her actions because she perceived the drugs reduced her anxiety and stress, which enabled her to better care for her patients” (Badzek, et al., 1998). Initially, Jackie’s diversion of controlled drugs went unnoticed. But, ultimately her luck ran out, and Jackie’s actions were discovered.

Steroid abuse by teen athletes and abuse of performance-enhancing supplements like creatine is also on the rise (Performance-enhancing drugs and your teen athlete, 2008, The Mayo Clinic). Although some teens may feel jaded and certain that they know ‘drugs are bad,’ and drugs fry your brain like the famous fried egg in a pan in the popular television commercial immortalized during the 1980s, many well-educated teens and young adults do not see the same risks inherent in prescription drugs or drugs that make them feel better or run faster (The Partnership’s fried egg message, 2008, Partnership for a Drug-Free America). “For a sizable group of people in their 20's and 30's, deciding on their own what drugs to take - in particular, stimulants, antidepressants and other psychiatric medications - is becoming the norm. Confident of their abilities and often skeptical of psychiatrists' expertise, they choose to rely on their own research and each other's experience in treating problems like depression, fatigue, anxiety or a lack of concentration. A medical degree, in their view, is useful, but not essential, and certainly not sufficient,” reports the New York Times, citing incidents of young adults

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, industrialized nations have seen the medicalization of a plethora of diseases including the ongoing trend of acknowledging addiction as a ‘brain disease.’ The claimsmaking made primarily by Nora Volkow in the documentary Addiction encompasses the constructionist ideologies of socially constructing a problem, or in the case of deviant drinking and drug use, a disease. The functionality of medicalization in America is seen with many different conditions and diseases. For example, the recent spike in the prescription of medications for ADD and ADHD is a prime model for how a deviant set of traits can be spun into a more socially acceptable and treatable “disease.” Whether or not drug and alcohol addiction

In Nolan and Amico’s article, “How Bad is the Opioid Epidemic?” they argue the opioid epidemic has become the worst drug crisis in American history. Heroin and other opioids overdose kill more than 47,055 people a year. Deaths caused from drug overdose has outnumber as much as 40 percent compared to the death caused from car crashes in 2014 (Nolan and Amico 3). Furthermore, in 1999 there were only 15000 people died from drug overdose. This number has tripled in 15 years. Also, in his article, “America’s Addiction to Opioids: Heroin and Prescription Drug Abuse” Volkow also presents the fact that “with an estimated 2.1 million people in the United States suffering from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers in 2012 and an estimated 467,000 addicted to heroin. The consequences of this abuse have been devastating and are on the rise. For example, the number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription pain relievers has

According to Columbia Casa and University of Minnesota (2015), students are facing the demands of coursework, part-time jobs, internships, social obligations and more, many turn to drugs as a way to cope.  More students than ever are taking stimulants, such as Adderall, for example to help students stay awake long enough to study or complete assignments on time. All too often, these prescription drugs are obtained without a legitimate prescription or with legitimate prescription and are selling to friends and others. Students are now exploring many new aspects of their lives and wonder what could come their way. It’s not uncommon for that self-exploration to dip into drug experimentation. Students who are surround themselves with other experimenters that are trying recreational and performance-enhancer drugs are more likely to try these substances for themselves. These habits lead to a drop in a college students academic grade and has been proven to do so. (Addiction Center 2015) According to National Institute on Drug Abuse Young Adults ranging in age 18-25, the abuse of prescription drugs is second only to abuse of

In the speech,”Everything you know about addiction is wrong,” spoken by Johann Hari, attempts to inform the audience about how society takes drug addiction the wrong way and is completely normal for a human to use drugs as a last resort in life. The presentation starts off when he explains to the audience the many different drug addicts he has met in his life a few years ago while traveling a long 30,000 mile journey. He then goes onto stating from his research that everything humanity has been taught about drugs is completely backwards. A experiment was done in the 50’s to show the relationship between drugs and social life. The reason people start drugs is not because they want to, but it is caused by not being able to bear a present in your life. Moreover, there is cruel punishments of drug abuse in America and how Portugal has tried to change it in their country. Luckily people can get over any kind of addiction when they have a friend or blood relative that they can call on if they have a crisis. Finally, people should be more supportive and open in their heart when it comes to others that have a addiction. The author uses logos and pathos to emotionally connect and comfort the people that have thought about drugs in their life and people that dislike drugs and addicts, but using ethos he tries to make a change in the natural drug habitat.

When asked to choose a book from the reading list, I read all of the titles hoping for one that sounded familiar. I didn’t recognize any of them so I chose one that sounded interesting and went to my library to reserve it. From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need to Know About Mind-Altering Drugs by Andrew Weil and Winfred Rosen starts out by explaining how drugs have been in our society for a very long time and they are not going away anytime soon. One author is an M.D. and the other is a writer, but both have had experiences with drugs, learning benefits and dangers along the way. These authors want it to be known that there is a difference between drug use and drug abuse, and at one point they say “there is no such thing as a bad

In a society where quantity of work overpowers quality of work, there is no wonder why "neuroenhancing" drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin are on the rise of consumption. As more people adopt the idea that these drugs are cognitively beneficial; the more they secretly use them for non-medical reasons. Margaret Talbot, a writer for The New Yorker, looks more into this problem in her article, "From Brain Gain: The Underground World of "Neuroenhancing" Drugs". Throughout this article Talbot focuses on a new trend of drug use, such as Adderall and Ritalin, for non-medical intentions. She focuses mainly on the increase of drug use by scholars and public intellectuals throughout her article. Talbot successfully proves to her audience that non-medical

Drugs aren’t just bad for some people, they are bad for everyone. Vidal states “Label each drug with a precise description of what effect-good or bad- the drug will have on whoever takes it.” Each drug will have a different affect, but none of them will be good ones. Although they may seem “good” at first, the outcome in the end is something that takes time to come back

There have been people who do not consider prescription drugs to be dangerous. In, The Ongoing Opioid Prescription Epidemic: Historical Context, it tells that Kathleen Foley at Memorial-Sloan Cancer Center published two highly influential articles reporting addiction to be rare among inpatients (Meldrum, 2016). The implied message is that there is no risk. This may be possible in some instances because, no two people are the same. The appeal being used is that long-term opioids were potentially safe, because patients could be trusted to manage their

She begins by focusing on the idea that using neuroenhancers is similar to antidepressants. While interviewing Seltzer he brings to her attention that “using neuroenhancers is like customizing yourself-customizing your brain. For some people, he went on, it was important to enhance their mood, so they took antidepressants, but for people like him it was more important to increase mental horsepower” (para. 15). Comparisons such as these smoothly lead Talbot into another important comparison-that in the 15 to 1600’s writers would use tobacco or saffron for neuroenhancing. In the 1800’s they talked about using copious amounts of coffee to stay awake and produce writings. Students today “are just the latest members of a seasoned cohort, even if they have more complex pharmaceuticals at their disposal” (para. 16). This is followed by her comparison of neuroenhancing to body enhancing with plastic surgery. Everyone who participates in body enhancing through plastic surgery knows the risks and complications that may come with it but choose to partake. Neuroenhancing is no different, with all the risks of using stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin spelled out it is the user’s choice to take part. By making all these comparisons it may make the reader believe that it is potential that neuroenhancing drugs may not be all the different then some of the other legal substances we use.

In his book, High Price, Dr. Carl Hart convinces his audience that the way the United States treats drugs and addiction isn’t congruent with the scientific knowledge and fact that Hart has himself discovered. To analyze Hart’s argument, one must look at the “what,” “why” and “how” elements of rhetoric. By examining the content and organization, the audience and context, and the pathos and ethos, it becomes possible to understand how Hart’s book was so convincing and effective. To begin, inspecting the “what” element seems as a natural starting place.

“When Mr. Bell drops a bombshell about his own relationship with prescription medications. The confessional documentary, memoir, play, whatever, is annoying far more often than it is effective, and that is certainly the case here. Yes, there's something terribly wrong in the prescription drug world, but when Mr. Bell reaches his preachy conclusions about Americans' reluctance to tolerate pain and take personal responsibility, you just want him to shut up.” (Genzlinger par 3).

After all, the majority of her audience has not had an experience with cocaine, but being college students and faculty, they have drank caffeine before to wake themselves up. The last way Slaker related to her audience was by her presentation selection. By speaking about scientific information to science professors or college students with intentions to major in the sciences, Slaker automatically caught the attention of her audience. Slaker, by showing her audience statistics for the cost of addiction annually, lent herself logos. Her statistics showed the audience that she had a logical reason for conducting her experiment. Slaker lent herself ethos, or creditability, by simply being a graduate student at the University of Washington studying neuroscience. Also, Slaker fully explained the complicated medical terms, like pyramidal neurons and interneurons, that the audience

Because the authors of the first article bombard the reader with word usage designed as a scare tactic, it ultimately has little effect. This rhetoric could end up backfiring on those who use the article in a drug awareness effort due to blatant lies and half-truths. Not to mention, the authors of the first article are researchers, therefore, the only responsibility is gathering the information without taking a direct stance on the issue. This limits the credibility of the authors, who work for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The author of the second article uses data from the same source as the previous, without the feeling of information shoved down the readers throat. The article has a more realistic approach because every reader can identify with the content. Although there may be some exaggerated points, the article speaks to what people know, therefore, more creditable. To the author’s credit, a recipient of nine teaching awards for drugs and human behavior, leading researcher in psychology and addictions, the Associate Professor of Clinical Science and Director of