In competitive fields there is the risk that abstaining from biological enhancement will put you at a disadvantage. What do you envision the future of high-demand institutions will be like under these circumstances?

Employment is competitive for many workers, particularly managerial roles; likewise, academia and elite sports. Social media has also evolved a pervasive competitive dynamic that can infiltrate into almost every aspect of our social lives. These forces may have been present before but now they are dramatically amplified.

In this context, individuals will always seek ways of boosting their performance or enhancing their presentation, to give them a perceived competitive edge. The issue is, how far are they prepared to go and how this is might be regulated.

Enhancing physical and mental performance through drug intervention or invasive surgical procedures involve risks to the individual up to and including death.

It is illegal to use someone else’s prescription to access drugs or to supply a prescription medication to someone without prescription. However, the internet has facilitated the purchase of scheduled drugs from overseas and you can import unscheduled drugs such as oxiracetam (a nootropic) for personal use in Australia without medical supervision, even though it can’t be legally sold here. Interestingly Nootropil, which is closely related to oxiracetam, is Prescription Only in Australia and approved for use in the treatment of epilepsy.

Institutions that administer competition based on individual/team ability such as sports, will want to ensure fairness with respect to performance enhancing ‘artificial’ aids. These bodies will continue to enforce strict rules with enforcement mechanisms to audit compliance and deter transgression.

In academia, surveys indicate that a significant percentage of students already take cognitive enhancers (nootropic drugs) in the form of amphetamines (eg Adderall), methylphenidate (eg Ritalin), eugeroics (eg Provigil) and racetams (eg Nootropil, and oxiracetam). Perceived benefits include enhanced executive function; alertness, attention, memory, cognitive flexibility and anti-fatigue.

Improved nootropics that enhance higher order executive functions will no doubt be developed in future to improve reasoning, problem solving and planning. An acceptable side effects profile will be critical to their regulatory acceptance and commercial success and they are likely to be very expensive initially (pre-patent expiry) and beyond the reach of individuals.

However commercial and academic research institutions would see the potential of such drugs to advance intellectual development and decision making. They may wish to co-op gifted individuals who were willing to receive pharmacological intervention to fill key organizational roles. This would raise ethical issues that would need to be addressed including use of drugs in healthy people and long-term safety.

I’m not sure how teaching institutions would respond if such drugs became accessible to individuals after patent expiry. Would this be regarded as cheating and subject to controls eg random testing and penalties?

Part 3

Note from Martin Lancaster – ‘the opinions expressed above are mine alone and should not be attributed to any other individuals or entities.’