Not Just Useless

In response to Tom Leidenfrost's post "Refusing One's Nature with Pharmaceuticals?" (12/14/2012):

While I believe that cases exist wherein using medication is the best option for a person, I agree that in many situations medication is both unnecessary and harmful.

Extreme mental abnormalities, such as severe hallucinatory schizophrenia or debilitating OCD, may so impair an individual's ability to perceive and interact with the world that they cannot function at all independently without the aid of pharmaceutical substances.  In cases such as these - wherein abnormalities are so extreme they may genuinely be called disorders or illnessess, as they cause just as much inconvenience and difficulty as physical illnesses - I think that taking medication is perfectly alright, or even advisable.

Other mental abnormalities, however, such as ADHD, and the now-defunct asperger syndrome, do not usually deprive individuals entirely of their autonomy.  They may make life more difficult to navigate, but they do not demand treatment in the same way that more extreme abnormalities do.  I do not think that most people with these abnormalities require medication, and might in fact benefit greatly from avoiding it.  As well as being unnecessary, medication can have notable harmful effects.  Many medications do have physical risks attached to them, but in addition, some may have mental risks which are not stated 'on the bottle,' so to speak.

A friend of mine is a karate instructor for young children.  On more than one occasion she has told me stories about a few of her students who were diagnosed with ADHD and began, due to their parents' decisions, taking medication for it.  Prior to taking medication these students were quite hyperactive and did not pay attention in class - they had fun, but did not really learn anything.  After beginning medication, they were calm and somewhat detached.  Sometimes they seemed almost asleep on their feet.  They still did not learn anything, and now they did not have fun either.

Obviously, medication does not have this sort of dramatic effect in every case.  However, especially when children take it because of their parents' decisions rather than their own, I think it is ethically problematic.  Instead of medicating children to make them cooperative, why don't schools implement longer research periods and less class hours?  Why don't parents pay attention to their children at home, instead of giving them a pill when they make noise and trouble to gain attention?  The most highly lauded school systems in the world all have considerably shorter class hours and longer research times than American schools; not only do these countries have a more educated populace, they also have a much lower ADHD rate.  I think that over-medication is definitely a problem, and that there are many alternatives to pharmaceuticals which are under-used and under-known, especially in America.