'Pleasure Drugs' Boom on the Way, Says Think-Tank
by Roger Highfield

Mind-altering drugs could be as common as coffee within a couple of decades to boost performance at school and at work, to 'unlearn' addiction and to erase memories of distressing events such as terrorist attack, according to a British government think-tank.

Society may end up realizing Aldous Huxley's vision of a Brave New World in which people take a supposedly perfect pleasure-drug, Soma - though the report shies away from discussing whether future governments will be tempted to encourage the use of "happy pills" for social control.

The Foresight think-tank points out that psychoactive substances have been part of society for thousands of years. It heralds the development of new recreational drugs, some of which may be less harmful than those already costing society around 20bn euros annually, mostly due to crime.

"We have not reached a ceiling for recreational drug use," it said. "Psychoactive drug use may spread more across the life course and may become more common than is currently evident in middle-aged or even older age groups."

One of the team that produced the report 'Drugs Futures 2025?', Professor Gerry Simpson of Imperial College London, said: "If there is such a thing as Huxley's Soma, that really does raise crucial questions for governments around the world about how legitimately to regulate such a substance."

David King, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief scientific advisor, who led the think-tank, said: "We are on the verge of developments that could move us into a world where we could take a drug to help us think faster, relax, sleep more efficiently or even subtly alter our mood to match that of our friends."

In addition to drugs that boost pleasure and sexual performance, the report raises the possibility of drugs that cause selective amnesia, for instance of a bomb attack, after the discovery that substances called beta blockers can reduce memories of stressful situations.

But the report warns that there are potential abuses of a tool that makes people forget, "examined in a number of films such as 'Total Recall' or 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' where characters are able to forget about painful relationships."

Other possibilities would be drug-testing of children before they took exams to ensure they do not cheat with cognitive enhancers, or 'cogs'.

"In a world that is increasingly non-stop and competitive, the individual's use of such substances may move from the fringe to the norm, with cognition enhancers used as coffee is today," says the report.

One problem raised by the study is that the pharmaceutical industry might change its focus from drugs that treat mental health to cognitive enhancers, "mental cosmetics" and treatments for addiction.
Irish Independent, per The Daily Telegraph, 14th July 2005

New World Order?

At first, some of the drugs being developed by the pharmaceutical industry sound wonderful. A report published yesterday by the Prime Minister's chief medical adviser, Sir David King, says that drugs already exist, or will soon be available, to help us think more quickly, relax, remember or forget.

There may soon come a time when it will be possible to vaccinate children against addiction, or to take a drug that will counteract the effects of alcohol on the memory. Even now, there is talk of testing students for drugs before they sit their exams, so as to make sure that they have not taken cognitive enhancers to improve their performance.

It is true that human beings have been taking mind-altering substances, from wine and coffee to coca leaves, since they first walked the earth. But there is something chilling about the latest advances. The new drugs' champions say that they will produce a happy race of geniuses. Isn't it just as likely, though, that they will create the pliant zombies of Huxley's Brave New World?
Leader, Daily Telegraph, 14th July 2005