The libertarian magazine Reason recently posted a piece that discusses the ethics of prohibiting college students from taking “smart drugs.” Certain drugs (Adderall is one that’s mentioned) can improve mental acuity and performance, and some scolds, moralists, luddites and prohibitionists find this a reason for distress rather than celebration of human progress.
An interesting question is raised here, one that relates to the moral underpinnings of prohibition, either total (alcohol, recreational drugs) or partial (prescription requirements for medicines). We know the origin of those traditional prohibitions. They’re rooted in a combination of puritanism and do-gooder mind sets. They’ve been sold on the premise that society benefits from government intervention in individuals’ choices, either by protecting others from the bad outcomes that may result from those choices, by protecting individuals from those who might convince them to make bad choices or consume products of questionable provenance, or by protecting the individuals themselves from the consequences of their own actions. In other words, prohibition is sold by focusing on bad things.
What, however, is the rationale for extending prohibition to good things?
As the article alludes, professional sports leagues prohibit some drugs. Major League Baseball prohibits “performance enhancing drugs,” or PEDs, presumably on the assumption that it’s not fair to athletes who don’t wish to use them, that there are health risks to which athletes shouldn’t have to subject themselves, that the playing field is more level without them, and so forth. MLB doesn’t, however, prohibit the decongestant pseudoephedrine (commonly known as Sudafed) on the grounds that it is a stimulant, whereas some other professional sport and sanctioning organizations do. Also not prohibited are such substances as Tylenol and caffeine, both of which can help an athlete perform better. MLB also permits, with restriction, other “good things” like modern baseball gloves and mitts to help catch the ball better, cleats and spikes to help players run better, prescription contact lenses, eye glasses and sun glasses to help players see better, and protective equipment for heads, elbows and ankles to help hitters stand at bat more comfortably.
Obviously, there are issues with steroids and other PEDs that don’t substantively exist with Tylenol and caffeine. Perhaps less obviously but even more validly, MLB is a private organization that can establish its own rules. It is the latter context that justifies, in my mind, MLB’s right to prohibit the use of certain substances. The government, however, is not a private organization providing a product that people may choose to buy (via tickets or via time devoted to watching a sponsored telecast) or not to buy.
So it goes with the question of drugs that enhance mental performance. Students over the decades have used all sorts of stimulants to help them through test cramming and all-nighters. In my college years, No-Doz and Vivarin were popular forms of caffeine that didn’t involve coffee (this was well before coffee became a hip and popular product for young adults), and of course Mountain Dew, with its neon yellow color, its massive sugar content (15% more than Coca Cola) and its hefty caffeine content (60% more than Coca Cola), was ubiquitous. Since then, all sorts of energy” drinks have come onto the market, with even more sugar and even more caffeine than Mountain Dew (not to mention some other stimulants). The latter, of course, have drawn scrutiny and criticism from the aforementioned puritans and do-gooders, who often believe that college students are old enough to vote, go to war and smoke cigarettes, but not old enough to decide how much sugar and caffeine should be consumed.
Apart from puritanical scolding and reactionary opposition, though, what moral case is there for prohibition of, lets call them mental performance enhancing drugs (MPEDs)? Colleges are competitive environments, and some might argue that a level playing field is warranted. But, college is not a spectator sport, it’s not funded by people who wish to see a fair contest, it’s a place where human knowledge is improved and advanced. A “level playing field” isn’t particularly compelling as an argument if the means for leveling the playing field works against greater achievement. Whereas the human condition isn’t improved if an athlete hits a dozen more home runs in a season, it is improved if human brains are better engaged in advancing human knowledge, or in educating themselves more effectively so that their future productivity is improved. The Reason article makes the argument that prohibition in such cases is immoral, thus turning the morality basis for banning certain behaviors on its head.
If morality is taken out of the equation in assessing prohibition and government restriction of consensual adult behavior, what’s left? Paternalism, puritanism, nannyingÉ call it what you will. In whatever form, the drive and desire to prohibit is an infringement and subordination of individual liberty and self-determination to some notion of a collective good – a good determined by those in power, of course. The collective good pursued involves reducing every individual’s liberty to a least-common-denominator set of restrictions intended to protect the most irresponsible and reckless from themselves, an intent that has utterly failed to actualize and that would remain immoral even if it had.
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