Sleep is For the Weak…

September 24, 2002

I’ve written a couple of times before on the willingness of human beings to pay for the privilege of being guinea pigs. Given the fact that the United States has a health care system that’s about as far from socialized as it’s possible to get, I am always amazed at the haste with which Americans want their prescription drugs. Every year, I hear people clamoring for more prescription drugs to be released to the market with less testing, and every year I hear more stories about prescription drugs being recalled because of previously-unknown side effects.

But what’s really a lot of fun is the recreational testing people will do.

Obvious examples of this would be MDMA (Ecstasy) and the new drug cocktail, Sextasy. MDMA - outlawed before good clinical trials could be completed - has become the willing guinea pig’s drug of choice in recent years. Originally developed as a battlefield stimulant before being tested in association with psychotherapy, MDMA has a longer history than most people realize. Without good clinical trials behind it, however, the illegal users are paying for the benefit of being our true guinea pigs. We have no idea of the true long-term effects of MDMA, but give us twenty years to round up the ravers and see.

Sextasy is a combination of MDMA and Viagra. I don’t have much to say about this one, except that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America has been displaying its usual wisdom in dealing with this popular new cocktail. Consider for a second that the primary market for Sextasy is people who want to have the high of Ecstasy, but who also want to negate drug’s slight tendency to cause sexual impotence. Is it really effective to tell those people that one of the bad things about Sextasy is that it can cause “an erection that can last up to four hours, causing possible anatomical damage”? Most people don’t read past “four hours,” and the dedicated ones who read the whole line put the emphasis on possible.

Of course, willingly subjecting yourself to an illegal drug like MDMA is hardly basis for calling yourself a “guinea pig.” After all, somebody - somewhere - has already determined that it’s a bad thing that you shouldn’t be doing. Regardless of facts, an official decision exists - and just try changing that decision. Go on. Try.

No, what’s more fun is when people become recreational testers for prescription drugs. Drugs that are legal for possession, and which you’ll probably not be asked to provide proof of your right to possess if people see them in your portable pill case.

Like, for instance, Provigil - a brand name for drug “modafinil.”

If you haven’t noticed the slow burn kicking up around modafinil, here’s the explanation in a nutshell. Modafinil was developed as a treatment for people who suffer from Narcolepsy. It’s a drug that stimulates you to a point where you don’t fall asleep. According to tests, it works by targeting the same areas in your brain that caffeine works on, but it targets them much more accurately. The result is a drug that wakes you up without making you jittery or distractable.

In fact, the military recently conducted experiments on using modafinil as a battlefield stimulant (what, again?) and found that soldiers running on a single dose of modafinil could operate without impairment for forty hours at a time, get eight hours of sleep, and then run for another forty hours straight.

So, where does recreational testing come in?

Let’s back up and take a look at this.

This drug keeps you awake without making you jittery and in most cases without impairing your ability to function in the real world.

Now, count how many times in a day you say, “If I only had enough time….”

In many ways, non-prescription abuse of modafinil looks like it could become more popular than non-prescription abuse of Viagra. Sure, the Viagra users want the added virility that the drug gives them. But that’s a pretty limited (even if popular) use of a drug. Modafinil appeals to the computer programmer, the gamer, the driven young executive, the grad student working on a thesis, the undergrad looking to make it through his exams in one piece, the raver who wants to stay up as long as possible to keep dancing, the author who wants to write but has to work a day job, the harried soccer mom who can’t get a minute to herself outside of her few hours of sleep… the list of potential abusers for modafinil is an ever-growing catalog. Think of the passion that you have the least time in the day for, and modafinil can begin to look awfully tempting.

And, like Viagra, there are already people out there ready to sell you the stuff without a prescription.

“So?” you may ask. “It keeps you up without making you jittery? No withdrawal symptoms appear in testing? You can concentrate while you’re on it? What’s the catch?”

Inquisitive, aren’t you?

The catch, of course, is obvious. You don’t sleep.

Sleep is about more than allowing your brain to rest or getting your muscles to stop feeling heavy. It’s about repairing the day-to-day damage done to your muscles, allowing your brain time to process new information, allowing oxygen to flow all the way out to your extremities — there’s a huge number of tasks that your body needs sleep to complete. No matter how great a drug might be at making you feel rested, there’s no replacement for sleep. Not yet.

But those who choose to test the sleep-deprivation technique of popping modafinil will be providing an excellent service for the drug’s manufacturers — giving them an infinite supply of guinea pigs to test the long-term effects of the new drug and, at the same time, providing them with the first subjects of true extended sleep deprivation that they’ve ever had.

Enjoy your adventures in pharmaceuticals, my friends.

As for me, I’m taking a nap.

Posted in Archived Unsorted