ADderall in HD

Welcome to the world full of neuroenhancers

Where you just pop a quick pill and turn your problems into answers

See them all around campus spreading like malignant cancers

From the nerds to team dancers, for free or costly transfers

Some get a type of high that's got you feeling tall

From Concerta to Ritalin, and most commonly Adderall

Add 'em all up and your hand will never scrawl

So you score above the curve leaving others so appalled

Sure it might be illegal, but there is no real harm to me

It's a safe drug, it means well, it's from a pharmacy!

My friend with ADD said work will get done, he promised me

He said your brain just keeps on running like Lake Washington's Argosy

Took some pills with coffee, I call it heaven's mix

Stayed up hours on end reading ANTH 4-7-6

With very little appetite, I ate a half a bar of Twix

Enought to get through a workload weighing like a bag of bricks

I still work hard hard and put my time in, but won't let focus decay

They say it's bad if you're not prescribed, what's the side-effect, FDA?

You say there's risk of heart problems, but that is so cliche

There's more good from working harder than just letting it all delay

But why do these drugs summon me?

Does it mean more profit for the company?

More kids faking diagnoses got pharmaceuticals saying "come money!"

Now we all reach in the basket of the corporate Easter bunny

And grab colorful energy packed eggs without the Red Bull aroma

Pulling all nighters for that distant, daunting diploma

Until the internal clock expires and you crash out on the sofa

Wake up from the coma, and pop the next Brave New World soma

(February 21, 2011)









After reading Nikolas Rose’s “Neurochemical Selves” from The Politics of Life: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century and Margaret Talbot’s article “Brain Gain: The Underground World of ‘Neuroenhancing’ Drugs” on The New Yorker, it has become apparent that the perspective on concentration and hard work has shifted to the performance of one’s brain power. People are led to believe that their brain’s capacity can reach higher levels of operation to meet society’s normal standard of functionality, as others choose to exceed the normal standard of functionality whether or not they are actually prescribed to a particular medication. This controversial perspective has been rooted from the progressive research designed around neuroscience and psychopharmacology. With new research and newly discovered brain functions, processes, reactions, and agents, a new army of drugs emerge. It has been emphasized by Rose several times that “when mind seems visible within the brain, the space between person and organs flattens out – mind is what brain does” (Rose 194), and by the 1950’s, there was a connection established between neurochemistry and its resultant, the behavior. “Across this bridge was to flow an accelerating stream of traffic between the clinic, the laboratory, and the factory. Each variety of disorder was soon assigned to an anomaly in a particular neurotransmitter system, and intensive research in the laboratories of universities and pharmaceutical companies sought to isolate the compounds whose specific molecular structure would enable them to target, modify, or rectify that anomaly” (Rose 196). Here we begin to see how neuroscience takes its shape as it is today. One question I had in mind after reading this was how much neuroscience’s research is devoted to solving illnesses as opposed to generating revenue. Has research produced illnesses in the last fifty years as a profitable marketing scheme?

This is the topic I want to address. Is it evident that pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers are in it for the money without looking into its widespread effects (medically and socially)? Depression could be a possible analogical step-up stool for pharmaceutical companies in history because “Prozac did not become an iconic drug because it was more effective than previous antidepressants. Its status was based on its claim to be the first drug whose molecule had been deliberately fabricated to disrupt one, and only one, aspect of a single neurotransmitter system,” (Rose 201) and in turn it has been trialed and marketed to millions of people, a lot of whom refused to take it after some time because they “didn’t want see [themselves] in that light or be stigmatized with that label” (Rose 197). It seems like more and more research is going into the brain for the wrong reasons, because if you can lead a diagnosis to somewhere in the brain where medications prove to be the only source of help, then that is a money-making opportunity for commercial companies. This is how psychopharmaceuticals in America manage to make up to $19 billion as described by Rose.

Fast forwarding to the 21st century, from depression to ADD and ADHD, we see an even more widespread use of prescription medication because their markets have gotten a lot bigger. As I’ve mentioned before, more in-depth research could produce more illnesses, and in turn “disorders often become widely diagnosed after drugs come along that can alter a set of suboptimal behaviors. In this way, Ritalin and Adderall helped make ADHD a household name” (Talbot 5). As we see in the YouTube videos shown above, students with or without a prescription claim that they use the drug Adderall. In Margaret Talbot’s “Brain Gain,” we are given the story about ‘Alex’ who was diagnosed with ADHD by describing his brother’s symptoms, so those without ADHD can also obtain a prescription for the medication. In the second part of the video Adderall U., they ask the boy if he thinks his school is aware of the use of the brain stimulant, and he says yes. In The Truth About Adderall, they ask a girl if she thinks the administration is aware of the use, she says she doesn’t know, but that a lot of people are open about claiming that they do. So, assuming that pharmaceutical companies know that these drugs are being used and distributed illegally, why isn’t there much being done about it? How come there hasn’t been as much research done on people who don’t necessarily need the medication, so that more people are aware of its long term effects? Cephalon’s founder and CEO, Frank Baldino Jr. says “I think if you’re tired, Provigil will keep you awake. If you’re not tired, it’s not going to do anything” (Talbot 6), yet studies on his company’s drugs have proven that non-sleep-deprived volunteers had significantly shown more effects than those who received a placebo.

What we are seeing from the videos above and the articles of interest is a clash between controversial usage and the widespread prevalence and distribution, both prescribed and illegally, and this has formed a sort of acceptance in society and in college campuses. My belief is that this could potentially stem from corporate greed and profitable pharmaceutical marketing schemes.


Here's an example of how Adderall is so readily available. The first three posts on YahooAnswers is about the drug and how they got it from a friend:

Works Cited

"YouTube - Adderall U. Part Two." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

"YouTube - The Truth About Adderall." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

Yahoo! Answers - Home. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

Nikolas Rose, 2007. Neurochemical Selves, IN The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twety-First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 187-223.

Margaret Talbot, "Brain Gain: The Underground World of 'Neuroenhancing' Drugs." The New Yorker, April 27, 2009.

"The Sad Truth of Humankind"

This week, as I Go-Post title, I used a reference for the Disney and Pixar animation film WALL-E. I thought it would also be a great example to use for analyzing with the tools given by Dennis Wiedman, Gelya Frank, Carolyn Baum, and Mary Law. The blockbuster movie WALL-E is about a small, trash-compacting robot (that stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) in the year 2700. This robot, WALL-E, has been working in the planet that has been uninhabited for hundreds and hundreds of years. Eventually, WALL-E meets another robot, EVE, which has come to earth to look for any signs of life on the planet. After befriending the robot, WALL-E shows EVE a green plant that he has found and to stay consistent with her directives, EVE had to retreat back to the large spaceship she originally came from, which consists of a large quantity of the existing human population which was used to evacuate the planet about 700 years earlier. WALL-E follows EVE back to the massive space cruise ship, and discovers the way of life of the human beings (Bing Movies). We see this footage of the lifestyle of the humans aboard the ship on the YouTube clip shown above. The humans disregard their bipedal structure for locomotion, and use hovering chairs to make their way around in organized, highway-like order. Every one of these chairs has a constant feed of television or offers a type of video chat with another person. For example, the first human shown in the clip is seen video chatting with a companion who is just to the side of him. We see that the humans only “eat” their meals through cups and straws, possibly symbolic of processed foods, designed efficiently to meet demand. About two minutes into the video clip, we a human fall off his chair and unable to get back up, waiting for the service bots to come put him back in his chair. The other robots created detours for passing people, as if they themselves are vehicles.

In this space cruise ship, we see that marketing and advertisement plays a key role in the lifestyle of the humans. Everything from the food in the cup, to learning the alphabets that relate to an upper power corporation, to changing into outfits that are “in” shows how the effects of corporate greed makes one lose sight of their inabilities from a physical, active, and healthy life to a lazy, convenient, and obese one. In what ways can we relate the context of this YouTube clip to the readings relating to disabilities? We must look into the message being sent by Wiedman, first. Dennis Wiedman has brought to light the disabling construct of modernity, by suggesting that chronic diseases are correlated with the progressive mindset of humankind. The large physique of the humans portrayed in the film illustrate how “the chronicities of the modern lifestyle are embodied by infrequent metabolic variation and overconsumption of calories leading to obesity” (Wiedman 43). The space cruise ship that these humans are living in is like a trap to feed a company with continuous income because the humans don’t quite have the ability to escape out of it, and don’t have any alternatives to subject themselves to. This is an accurate representation of Wiedman’s idea that “by being forcibly contained politically, economically, and bodily to small resource areas, history shows that they quickly became limited in their physical activities and dependent upon the U.S. government for energy-dense, industrially processed food” (Wiedman 46). That pretty much hits the nail on the head. Perhaps there is an exaggerated depiction of a cultural transition from a more physical group of people, to a lazy and more convenient group. It could be an example of a cultural transition that “portrays the critical juncture of modernity as populations transition from subsistence agriculture to a cash economy, from self-produced foods to a store-brought foods, from vigorous household chores to the comforts of household appliances, and from actively walking to riding in cars and trucks” (Wiedman 42).

How can a movie like WALL-E complement the works of Frank, Baum, and Law? Maybe the film played a huge role in addressing the goals of anthropologists and even therapists? “In the sophisticated interdisciplinary academic environments in which occupational therapy must survive, stronger institutional ties are need with medical anthropology, public health, disability studies, and other fields that can help to build social theory and critical standpoints affecting not only clinical encounters and life worlds of suffering, but the profession itself” (Frank 246). Occupational therapy is a great source of treatment for individuals who have to learn to adapt to the demands of society as “its practicioners address health promotion, wellness and quality of life, rehabilitation, and function,” (Frank 230) but what about prevention? I strongly believe that WALL-E was a great tool to use as a “crystal-ball effect” to show kids (who were the main audience) the flaws of ultra-convenience and processed foods. Occupational therapists deal with patients who are involved with chronic diseases, and this Pixar animation was a product that dealt with “normal” humans that evolved to have chronic conditions according to our standards. The trick here was that the film is presented to millions of children, and that is a huge way of spreading prevention and awareness through the market of entertainment.


"WALL-E - Bing Movies." Bing. Web. 18 Feb. 2011. .

"YouTube - Wall-E...the Sad Future of Human Kind." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 18 Feb. 2011. .

Gelya Frank, Carolyn Baum, and Mary Law. 2010. “Chronic Conditions, Health, and Well0being in Global Contexts: Occumpational Therapy in Conversation with Critical Medical Anthropology.” In Chronic Conditions, Fluid States: Chronicity and the Anthropology of Illness. Lenore Manderson and Carolyn Smith-Morris, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Pp. 230-246.

Dennis Wiedman. 2010. “Globalizing the Chronicities of Modernity: Diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome.” In Chronic Conditions, Fluid States: Chronicity and the Anthropology of Illness. Lenore Manderson and Carolyn Smith-Morris, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Pp 38-53.

HEAVYWEIGHT CONTENDERS: RELIGION vs SCIENCE

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The example for this week’s analysis is brought to you by the website for “Catholic answers” by www.catholic.com. We will compare the contents of this website with the summary for Thursday’s articles which relates to the effect medical authority and the dynamics behind sexual desires and sex addiction. Jennifer Terry’s article “Medicalizing Homosexuality” from An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society— dives into the use of medical authority as a means of embracing homosexuality in society with scientific evidence, in which physicians who were proponents of homosexuality would try to use their credibility, respected by most people, to change views on gay men and women who were victimized in discrimination and prejudice. It was believed by most people that “the growing trust in medicine, held by a wide range of people, was tied to the belief that its practitioners were rational, truthful, and objective, while also caring and compassionate” (Terry 42). Biomedicine were aware of this “trust,” but was it enough to make a difference?

Jannice Irvine’s article “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desires and Sex Addiction” from Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture shares a similar approach to the idea of sexual desires and addiction by connecting to science once more. She links desire and addiction to the endocrinology of the brain and the body which could be medically justified as a disease as opposed to choice. She says that “professionals have assiduously tracked the etiology of sexual conditions within a biomedical tradition that quantifies desire and locates this search for primeval urge in the subject itself” (Irvine 320). What Jannice Irvine and Jennifer Terry have shown is that there tends to be a need for a scientific evidence for there to be a social acceptance about a subjective topic. The basis of scientific and medical evidence is often interpreted as the most definitive, but what is one of the most common grounds of confliction with science? Religion. For so long, science and religion have clashed and clashed, and although some individuals believe both in simultaneity (with Pascal’s theorem being a force in the existing religious beliefs), religious institutions and foundations tend not to budge or give way to science as a means of reason and understanding. For instance, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and idea of evolution was thought to be dumbfounded by religions that are solely revolved around creationism by God. Magnus Hirschfield was brought into Terry’s article, saying he “was compelled by Darwin’s idea of indispensability of natural variation in evolutionary processes” and that “[homosexuality] represents a piece of that natural order, a sexual variation like numerous, analogous sexual modifications in the animal and plant kingdoms,” yet this given information could be played off so fast by religious institutions (Terry 54).

By understanding the notions towards science by conservative religious groups, we can understand where these clashes between ideas occur and why. First off, I want to state that the quotes that I’m citing directly off Catholic.com are in no way an accurate representation of the beliefs of every individual who is part of the Catholic religion. On the website, under “Homosexuality,” I came across the following:

“Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law” (Catholic Answers).

What we see here is a quote that undermines, in a sense, the homosexual’s existence. It is given through that particular statement, that homosexual behavior is an “act,” and can’t be seen as a way of life despite the natural outcome of the individual’s sexuality from the very moment of birth. Scientific specialists have been aiming for an “emancipatory” approach to homosexuality, including Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who presented that “homosexuals were psychical hermaphrodites, having bodies that seemed to be normal but psyches that were inverted” (Terry 44). The website forms a counterargument against this by stating:

“Even if there is a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality (and studies on this point are inconclusive), the behavior remains unnatural because homosexuality is still not part of the natural design of humanity. It does not make homosexual behavior acceptable; other behaviors are not rendered acceptable simply because there may be a genetic predisposition toward them” (Catholic Answers).

A few questions a person can ask the writer for this website are: what if the individual was naturally designed to be homosexual? What is humanity designed for, even if it was meant to be heterosexual? Does the disregard towards the genetic predisposition of homosexuality downplay the medicalization of homosexuality, which in turn questions the structure and objectivity of biomedicine in general?

Irvine produces the idea that sexual desire is a result of a “biological drive or surging energy that is either flooding uncontrollably or woefully diminished” (Irvine 320). This is to say that we aren’t always in control of what our body wants. There is a chemical foundation that leads to the desire, and at times we don’t have the ability to refrain. The website tackles this by stating:

“Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner” (Catholic Answers).

In the end, it’s all about culture. Scientifically, there is no pathogenesis in regards to sexual desire, but culturally it could be seen as a disease. This is supported by Irvine’s claim that “there must be cultural recognition that desire problems are diseases, with a subsequent adoption of the language and concepts of dysfunction" (Irvine 327). How does homosexuality produce dysfunction, though? Biologically, it may not provide offspring for males, but socially they are just as contributive as any other group of human being.


"Homosexuality." Catholic Answers: Catholic Apologetics, Catholic Evangelization, Catholic Teachings, Catholic Radio, Catholic Publishing, Catholic Truth. Web. 11 Feb. 2011. .

Jennifer Terry. 1999. “Medicalizing Homosexuality.” IN An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp 40-73.

Jannice M. Irvine. 1995. “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sexual Addiction.” In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture.” Edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla. Bloomington and Indianoplis: Indiana University Press.

KAMA SUTRA?!

One of the most recognized groups of text in the world is the ancient Indian text that is almost always referenced in popular culture, the Kama Sutra. This text was written by a Hindu philosopher named Vatsyayana between the 4th and 6th century, which was a time period well before the anatomical claims mentioned in Thomas Laqueur’s Making Sex: Body and Gender from Greeks to Freud. This example was chosen because it raises a question about how culture, relevant to region, influences the science and social science of sex. Before we can dive into the analysis of the Kama Sutra, let’s quickly review what the text is all about.

The Kama Sutra has thirty six chapters which are separated into seven parts. The first part of the book talks about the three goals of life which are: “the acquisition of knowledge, conduct of the well-bred townsman, and reflections on intermediaries who assist the lover in his enterprises.” The second part of the text is about the amorous advances and sexual union. Here we see the book providing details of up to sixty four different types of sexual acts, everything from different ways of kissing, sexual positions, and types of embraces. The second part is probably the most notable and popularized of all. The third part is about acquiring a wife. It’s five chapters long and is all about meeting a girl and making her feel comfortable, then eventually marrying her. Notice that it’s for a male’s point of view. The fourth part is about the duties and privileges of the wife which is only spread into two chapters. The fifth part is delves into other men’s wives and the behavior between man and woman. The sixth part is about courtesans, which are also noted during the Renaissance era in Europe. These six chapters are about advice of the assistants on the choice of lovers and looking for a steady lover. The seventh and final part is about improving physical attractions and arousing a weakened sexual power.

I think it’s important to get an idea of who the Kama Sutra is intended for. Is it written to provide a mutual sensation for both males and females? It doesn’t quite follow the one-sex model as Laquer emphasized throughout most of his article, but it does agree with his point that “context determines sex in the world of two sexes as well” in his conclusion (113). But could the book be more geared towards females? Or is it more geared towards the males? The Kama Sutra could possibly be more of a guide for men because of its hints for finding the other female and taking care of her. There is no guide for women on how to approach men, so this could mean that in the pre-Renaissance era in India, male dominance had an influence on culture, just as Laquer had suggested in Making Sex: Body and Gender from Greeks to Freud by mentioning that anatomically “…one saw only one sex made even words for female parts ultimately refer to male organs” (96). Maybe Vatsyayana believed that the best way to understand sexuality comes from the male perspective, since it was commonly referred to as the standard back in antiquity. Could the Kama Sutra have been written to further promote reproduction, though? Laquer did state that “the specific claim that female orgasm was necessary for conception was, moreover, known to be vulnerable since antiquity” (66). It’s very possible that this idea existed before the Renaissance era and in a distant land. Perhaps the Kama Sutra was a way to help provide the extra stimulus, arousal, and to intensify pleasure to insure fertilization. All the chapters in the book about different ways to perform intercourse and improving sexual attractions and arousing a weakened sexual power could be seen as a huge cultural factor to promoting and allowing successful conception. Perhaps Vatsyayana agreed with the notion presented by Laquer from the Renaissance era that “foreplay was taken as a requisite prelude to procreative intercourse” (67). Could the Kama Sutra still exist as the traditional means of conception in India in the present day? What contradicts this argument is the fact that nowhere in the brief descriptions of the Kama Sutra did it mention fertility or conception, or even having a family with kids. If Vatsyayana wanted to promote a means of fertility through his book, wouldn’t he have mentioned it so the readers knew what it was meant for? Or maybe back in that time period, it was widely known that the process of fertility could only be brought by the natural pleasures of intercourse.
Another question to keep in mind is if the Kama Sutra had any role in the overpopulation that is occurring in India with over one billion people.

"The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Index." Internet Sacred Text Archive Home. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. .


Thomas Laqueur, New Science, One Flesh. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp. 63-113.