Better Living Through Chemistry: Bring On Melanotan and Provigil

Some people just can’t stand seeing other people happy — especially if that happiness is “unnatural.”

In Wired, for example, Wil McCarthy takes on the wonder drug Melanotan. Melanotan has chemical properties that sound like a pharmaceutical marketer’s dream come true. The drug’s major effect is to create a deep, healthy tan. And it also just happens to be an anti-inflammatory, increases sexual desire and suppresses appetite.

McCarthy derisively refers to Melanotan as “the Barbie drug.” He concludes his noting that by the end of this decade Melanotan and drugs like it will be common adding that, “this decade is a breathing period, a chance to prepare for our cultural destiny: the drug-fueled extreming an professionalization of shallowness itself.”

For McCarthy, using chemical compounds to increase the sheer joy of life is inherently shallow and a waste. To McCarthy, drugs like Melanotan are proof that “Yesterday’s drugs were about need; today’s are about desire.”

Much the same criticism was directed against Viagra when it first appeared. A drug to produce erections? Aren’t children still dying of malaria in Africa? Who needs Viagra?

Similar handwringing was on display over Provigil. Provigil has been used for years to treat narcolepsy. The drug’s maker wants the FDA to approve Provigil for more widespread use.

Provigil doesn’t increase sexual desire, but it does act as a stimulant to keep people awake — with very little side effects. Stimulants commonly used by people to stay awake tend to make people jittery or are addictive and all tend to keep a person awake for hours only to bring him or her crashing down later.

In studies Provigil keeps people awake for long periods without the jitters, addictiveness, and other problems associated with other stimulants.

The major concern about Provigil is that it may be abused, but certainly caffeine and other stimulants are already used excessively by many people.

Personally, I’d love to get my hands on either drug. Why should not used drugs not only to treat/cure disease, but also to improve our general well being? These sorts of drugs need to be safe and have potential side effects disclosed, but I would hope that once those criteria are met that we would not slip into McCarthy’s brand of biomedical Puritanism that sees the pursuit of joy and happiness as inherently shallow.

Sources:

Thin! Tan! Hotter than Hell! Wil McCarthy, Wired, June 2002.

Stay-awake pill keeps users alert. Dan Springer, Fox News, May 2, 2002.