Kids: say no to drugs! (Unless mommy says)

New scientific discoveries are made everyday in the fields of genetics and bioengineering. These are fields that greatly affect the biomedical community not only through the development of new procedures but also in the development of new, “smarter” drugs. In Rose’s article on Neruochemical Selves, he discusses new drugs which are based the intricate workings of the brain. Neurotransmitters and their receptors appear to run most of the mechanisms in the brain, from forming memories to calculating statistics. By affecting which neurotransmitters are degraded in the synaptic pathway, many scientists believe that they can control the multitude of disorders based in the brain, the seat of the mind. This applies most directly to the field of psychiatry where doctors search for the cure to mental disorders, or at least ways to maintain or control the symptoms. While there are obviously other areas of treatment for problems such as depression and bipolar disorder, I will reflect Rose’s paper in that I will focus on the drug induced side of medicine.

Why do we feel that we need drugs? When we are feeling sad or hyperactive, what makes us feel that we are sick and in need of chemical treatment in our brain? The advertisements that we see on television may hold an answer to this question. There are commercials for every type of conceivable problem; thoughts of suicide and massive depression are catered to just as frequently as products to grow thicker hair and eyelashes. But there are definite similarities between these commercials, in the way that they appeal to their audiences. The verbal side of the commercials is an important part, but first let’s consider the visual aspects that sell.

Commercials for drug products such as Pristiq, Abilify, and Zoloft* are designed to sell their product to people suffering from depression. The commercials begin with a black and white scene and a person wandering alone. As the advertisement progresses the loner discovers the miracle drug that changes their world from dark and dreary to full Technicolor! (There is also an appropriate progression from minor to major keys in the music in the background of the scene). As happiness and colors merge together, the person is joined by family or friends who are happy that the loner has returned from their dark days of depression. What this progression indicates to the audience is that the depressed person has discovered their old self, and regained control over their life and relationships, through the magic of a single pill. As Rose writes, these advertisements are “tied to an ethic of self-control, lifestyle promotion and self-realization” (Rose 2007: 212). The patient is given a chance to return to their former, happier days, which is a feeling that the commercial hopes to inspire in the audience. “These drugs too, participate in a political economy of hope” (Ibid. 211).

The verbal side of advertising is equally important. It is this side of the drug commercial that convinces the listener of the advertisement’s legitimacy (a concept discussed in detail with the articles by O’Dell and Langford). As the visual scene changes the patient’s life, there is a calm, comforting voice that quotes statistics of the number of people who use the prescription medication every day, and quotes doctors and reassuring success stories to put the audience further at ease. Often, the advertising campaign must sell “not so much the drug…as the disease itself” (Ibid. 213). It must first convince the audience that “they are suffering from a treatable condition” (Ibid. 213) in order to draw them into the doctor’s office for a prescription. If someone was unwilling to take drugs before, this message might help to convince them to talk to a doctor. As Zoloft advertises, “When you know more about what’s wrong you can help make it right.” This empowering statement, along with the often-quoted “Ask your doctor if ____ is right for you” encourages the notion of control over health and treatment.

Regardless of the ethics of pharmaceutical companies tricking us into taking medication for our every ache and pain, we live in America and are free to be duped into buying whatever product is sold to us on television. The drugs were certainly tested and shown to help some people, so there is a chance that pills can help a person’s chronic depression. Our trust in the medical profession may even create a placebo effect for the drug, causing improvement in daily life, if the side effects are not too severe. But ordering prescription drugs is no longer an exclusively adult activity. Children, who are too young to have developed their own opinions and control over their health, are now quickly diagnosed with the ever-popular ADHD, and given their own prescriptions to fill. Parents are generally known to be protective and caring, so what could bring them to the point of diagnosing their grade-schooler with a mental illness and pumping them up with drugs every day? Rose suggests that “parent activism in these areas is to dispute suggestions that the conditions of their children have anything to do with social conditions or parental management” (Ibid. 216). No one likes to be told that they are doing something bad to their children, and everyone would like to hear that their child is even smarter than the mediocre grades that they have been receiving from school. The marketing to the parents of young, hyperactive children reflects just that. Parents of difficult children find relief once the drugs start to kick in. A four-year-old suddenly has the attention span of a well-behaved six-year-old, and their grades in school reflect it. Ironically, just as the D.A.R.E. programs begin to tell children to “Say no to drugs”, the youngsters begin down a lifelong path of taking prescription medication. The imaginative and hyperactive nature of children seems to be taken into account only infrequently, and the children are soon convinced of the new truth that they need drugs, regardless of the facts. It is difficult to pinpoint the blame for this often needless lifelong dependency on drugs; the pharmaceutical companies that advertised to the parents, the doctors who wrote the prescriptions, and the parents who were scared of the behavior of their own children seem to be equally at fault.

Adults may seem to be entranced by their new, "neurochemical selves" (Ibid. 222) and their ability to put their life back in order with a prescription, but advertising campaigns are becoming too effective if children, who have not yet discovered who they are without drugs, are drawn into the pharmaceutical circle. At this point psychiatrists can hardly claim that they are 'doing no harm'.

*Note: these drug names are links to their respective commercials.

Works Cited

Nikolas Rose, 2007. Neurochemical Selves, IN The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 187-223.

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