LEGAL "PLEASURE DRUGS"
ON THE WAY!
'Pleasure drugs' boom
on way, says think-tank
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 14/07/2005)

Mind-altering drugs could be as
common as coffee within a couple of
decades to boost performance at
school and at work, to "unlearn"
addiction and to erase memories of
distressing events such as a terrorist
attack, according to a government
think-tank.

Society may end up realising Aldous
Huxley's vision of a Brave New World in
which people take a supposedly
perfect pleasure-drug, Soma - though
the report shies away from discussing
whether future governments will be
tempted to encourage the use of
"happy pills" for social control.


We may end up realising Aldous
Huxley's vision
The Foresight think-tank points out
that psychoactive substances have
been part of society for thousands of
years. It heralds the development of
new recreational drugs, some of which
might be less harmful than those
already costing society around £13
billion annually, mostly due to crime.

"We have not reached a ceiling for
recreational drug use," it said.
"Psychoactive drug use may spread
more across the life course and may
become more common than is
currently evident in middle-aged or
even older age groups."

One of the team that produced the
report, Drugs Futures 2025?, Prof
Gerry Simpson, of Imperial College
London, said: "If there is such a thing
as Huxley's Soma, that really does
raise crucial questions for
governments around the world about
how legitimately to regulate a
substance like that."

Sir David King, the Prime Minister's
chief scientific adviser, who led the
think-tank, said: "We are on the verge
of developments that could possibly
move us into a world where we could
take a drug to help us think faster,
relax, sleep more efficiently or even
subtly alter our mood to match that of
our friends."

In addition to drugs that boost
pleasure and sexual performance, the
report raises the possibility of drugs
that cause selective amnesia, for
instance of a bomb attack, after the
discovery that substances called beta
blockers can reduce memories of
stressful situations.

But the report warns that there are
potential abuses of a tool that makes
people forget, "examined in a number
of films such as Total Recall or The
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
where characters are able to forget
about painful relationships".

Other possibilities would be drug
testing of children before they took
exams to ensure that some did not
cheat with cognitive enhancers, or
"cogs".

"The ethical debate about whether or
nor to use drugs to improve
performance in normal schoolchildren
and students will probably be resolved
over the next 20 years," said the
report. "Similarly, there will be
continued debate about the ethics of
using cognition enhancers in the
workplace."

However, it added: "In a world that is
increasingly non-stop and competitive,
the individual's use of such substances
may move from the fringe to the norm,
with cognition enhancers used as
coffee is today."

One problem raised by the report is
that the pharmaceutical industry might
change its focus from drugs that treat
mental health to cognitive enhancers,
"mental cosmetics" and treatments for
addiction. "The pharmaceutical
industry may not make new medicines
for mental health conditions," he said.

The report lists existing cognitive
enhancing drugs, such as modafinil
(Provigil), which was developed for
sleeping disorders, and
methylphenidate (Ritalin), a treatment
for attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder. Both are already being used
to improve alertness and performance,
including by students.

"Modafinil improves working memory,
that is your ability to remember
telephone numbers, to give you an
extra digit or two, and improve your
planning when you are tackling
chess-like problems," said Prof Trevor
Robbins of the University of
Cambridge. "The drug makes you less
impulsive and more reflective about a
problem."

Sir David said yesterday that the
findings of the think-tank were
"independent of government and don't
constitute government policy. It is for
government to respond."

rhighfield@telegraph.co.uk
Scientists predict brave
new world of brain pills

Common use of drugs to improve
the mind poses ethical challenge

Alok Jha, science correspondent
Thursday July 14, 2005
The Guardian


Can't remember phone numbers,
worried about an upcoming exam or
desperately want to give up smoking?
In future, the answer will be simple: just
pop a pill.
The idea that an array of easily
available and addiction-free drugs
could be used to improve memory or
increase intelligence is the stuff of
science fiction dystopia - in Brave New
World, Aldous Huxley created a whole
planet under the spell of a pleasure
drug called Soma.

But a new report by leading scientists
in the fields of psychology and
neuroscience argues that, very soon,
there really will be a pill for every ill.
"It is possible that [advances] could
usher in a new era of drug use without
addiction," said the report by
Foresight, the government's
science-based thinktank.

"In a world that is increasingly non-stop
and competitive, the individual's use of
such substances may move from the
fringe to the norm."

However, the report said the
widespread adoption of new
brain-enhancing drugs was not without
risks and would raise "significant
ethical, social and practical issues."

Drugs that work on the brain are
already common - many people can
hardly begin their days without the
mind-sharpening effects of caffeine or
nicotine.

Launching the report yesterday, the
government's chief scientific adviser,
Sir David King, said that
brain-enhancing drugs developed to
treat diseases such as Alzheimer's
were likely to find increased use
among healthy people looking to
improve their perception, memory,
planning or judgment.

Ritalin, prescribed to children with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
is sometimes used by healthy people
to enhance their mental performance.
Modafinil, a drug developed to treat
narcolepsy, has been shown to reduce
impulsiveness and help people focus
on problems.

"It improves working memory - your
ability to remember telephone numbers
- it gives you an extra digit or two," said
Trevor Robbins, an experimental
psychologist at Cambridge University
and an author of the Foresight report.

"It also improves your planning when
you're doing complex, chess-like
problems. It makes you more reflective
about a problem: you take a bit longer
but you get it right."

Modafinil has already been used by
the US military to keep soldiers awake
and alert and some scientists are
considering its usefulness in helping
shift workers deal with erratic working
hours. It has also been tested for
cocaine users. "It produces some of
the subjective effects of cocaine
without the chronic dependence," said
Prof Robbins. Other drugs are being
touted as "vaccinations" against
substances such as nicotine, alcohol
and cocaine. The treatment would
work by causing the immune system to
produce antibodies against the drug
being abused - these antibodies would
render the drug impotent when taken
and prevent it from having any effect
on the brain.

"How [the vaccinations are] used
depends on clinical judgments," said
Prof Robbins. "Informed consent is
important."

But he cautioned against any plan to
pre-vaccinate people against
narcotics. "One would be very careful
indeed about trying to sign one's
children up for such treatment," he
said. "That, to me, sounds
reprehensible."

In the long term, drugs that can delete
painful memories could also be used
routinely. "We are now looking 20-25
years ahead," said Prof Robbins. "Very
basic science is showing that it is
possible to call up a memory, knock it
on the head and produce selective
amnesia."

That has obvious uses for people
suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder, but there is also the
tantalising possibility that it could be
used to treat harmful addictions.

"Drug addiction can be understood
very much as an aberrant learning
process," said Prof Robbins.

"Many of these drugs hijack the
learning processes of the brain and
produce aberrant habits, which
dominate behaviour.

"Clearly the possibility exists that you
can call up a drugrelated memory and
produce amnesia for it, thus removing
craving for that particular drug."

As drug research improves, the
harmful effects of today's recreational
drugs could even be engineered out.

"It may be that one could design out
the harmful effects of existing drugs,"
said Professor Gerry Stimson of
Imperial College. "So, alcohol
analogues, drugs which produce
similar effects to alcohol without some
of the side-effects."

Society must decide how to use the
new drugs, the scientists said.

For example, if drugs to improve exam
performance become widespread,
schoolchildren might find themselves
being tested for drugs before exams,
they suggested.

"It's a new twist on drug-testing," said
Prof Stimson. "Is it a fair advantage or
an unfair advantage?"

On the menu: range of treatments


· Ritalin (methylphenidate) is used by a
small number of students in an attempt
to improve exam results and by
business people to improve
performance in the boardroom

· D-amphetamine also improves
memory but only for people of a
certain genetic make-up

· Rimonabant is used as an antidote to
the intoxicant effects of cannabis and a
treatment for heroin relapse. But it is
sometimes also used to enhance the
high produced by these drugs by
reducing their side-effects

· Naltrexone is already used to treat
chronic alcoholism and narcotic abuse.
It works by blocking the pleasure
receptors that are normally activated in
the brain when people use the drugs

· Propranolol, a beta-blocker, is used
to treat high blood pressure, angina,
and abnormal heart rhythms. It is also
used sometimes by snooker players to
calm their nerves

· Modafinil, a stimulant developed to
treat narcolepsy, has been used by
soldiers to improve memory and
judgment. It is also used in treatment
of cocaine addiction.

[Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/stor
y/0,11381,1528069,00.html.com]
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