John Harris has publicly proclaimed that university students should be allowed to take cognitively enhancing drugs, such as Ritalin, to boost academic performance, says the Times Online. This view is precisely the one that he and his colleagues espoused last month in an article in Nature that was discussed right here on blog.bioethics.net.

Yet, Harris goes on to say that only should students at university be allowed to take these drugs, but they should be available without prescription, simply over the counter, or at least for them to be prescribed for non-therapeutic purposes. The interesting angle here is the over-the-counter bit. I worry that 18 to 21-year-old would be running to the pharmacy downing Provigil to turn their 48-hour stint into a 96 hour one without regard for their bodily needs or any side-effects or that they would ignore even the most conscientious pharmacist’s instructions.

Prescribing cognitive enhancing drugs for non-therapeutic purposes is fine–we use all sorts of drugs for non-therapeutic purposes, particularly enhancement all the time.
The reality is that this era has come and that college students will–whether by prescription or some other means–use enhancing substances to improve their academic performance. The key is how to do it.

It would seem preferable and safer to promote a scenario by which these drugs could be easily procured from a physician, given in doses that require monthly follow-up visits (i.e. with 1 or no refills), and that physicians, parents, and society all accept that cognitive enhancement is going to be part of the 21st century.

Summer Johnson, PhD