Print Edition: October 30, 2013
It has been over 80 years since Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The marketing and consumption of pharmaceuticals has reached the dystopian level. We’re over-diagnosed and over-prescribed drugs. When you visit a Doctor there are advertisments for medication on the walls. Should we fight this drug dichotomy, or embrace the fact our quality of life has improved from pharmaceuticals. I agree medication is prescribed merrily as bullets are shot in GTA V. However, I cannot deny that millions of lives are living with an improved quality of life from pharmaceuticals. I have lived on both sides of the fence, I have had skepticism about pharmaceuticals. Though, I have also experienced the benefits. Using pharmaceutical drugs does have costs, and we assess these risks compared to benefits. If your benefits are greater than the risk, why not?
I worry when I see medicine cabinets compared to an army arsenal. However, I am concerned about maladaptive lifestyles, which can be relieved by specific and precise use of medication. An an example, I’ll use mental health. If someone is diagnosed with depression, a familiar reality in our society. We acknowledge that people with depression have inadequate serotonin to have a stable baseline mood above misery. Then, why wouldn’t we choose treatment which can make a difference? I was always against medication, and had paranoid feelings about Big Pharma. I realized the irrationality, after, the joint was put out.
In my example, if someone chooses the medication, we have a chance that the quality of can be improved. The individuals baseline mood will be above a level of misery or “depressed,” this person can therefore be enabled to make positive choices which will spiral into a self-fulfilling positive lifestyle.
I still diagree by labeling and medicating every last ailment. However, with careful, logical and monitored use of medications we can experience enriched welfare.
“The green stuff,” can be fun. Althought in regards to mental health, it’s result is negative and proven to worsen mental health; increasing anxiety and feelings of apathy. Marijuana is a depressant—which makes sense it’s detrimental for people with a predispositon towards depression.
If you can handle the consideration of medication, that it can improve quality of life. Why dismiss the idea? However, I like Brave New World and we still need to be weary of: a wakeup pill, eating pill, weightloss pill, energy pill, social pill, ambition pill, a digestive pill and a sleeping pill. The choice is yours.
Dylan Much
