Musings about drugs...

I apologize for not updating recently at all. Totally goes against what I've been hoping to do, but with the end of classes (on April 3rd) and my current sinus infection, I've been under the weather with regard to blog posting.

That said, the latter does bring up one of my current rants.

I went looking for a decongestant today, because my sinuses are terrible (and when they block up, I get horrible shooting pains in my skull, specifically near my eyes). Now, I know as a rule that when one looks for a decongestant, one looks from a drug called pseudoephedrine. Essentially, pseudoephedrine is a vasoconstrictor (that is it constricts blood vessels) and this allows less fluid to leave the blood stream and slows mucus production significantly, as well as reducing inflamation.

However, pseudoephedrine (you have no idea how annoying it is to type that out every time) is also an important precursor in the creation of methamphetamine. As a result of this, and of the corrispondingly more stringent rules against the sale of pseudoephedrine, drug companies have begun to reformulate decongestants with other, less illicitly useful drugs, primarily phenylephrine.

The problem is, clinically speaking, that phenylephrine hasn't been shown to have any useful effect at all. A variety of studies have shown it to be no more or less effective than a placebo.

Which makes it somewhat troublesome for those of us who just want to get our nasal passages declogged to do so.

Is it reasonable that we restrict the distribution of a known-useful substance in order to prevent it from being used illicitly? This isn't a merely hypothetical question; this question springs up at every level of governance and law, from firearms to narcotics to motor vehicles.

It's probably unlikely someone will die due to their nasal passages being clogged up and unable to be relieved. It's equally well known that people have died from methamphetamines.

The problem is that judging risks and rewards when the numbers are measured in human lives is a very grisly business, and rarely do we accept that perhaps it's better to let a few people die for convenience...

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

One of the ethical concepts I have the most difficulty grasping is that from Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. For those of you who have not read the story (and are too lazy to do so), it is a short story based on the moral concepts of utilitarianism. Essentially, there is a town that is perfectly happy and perfectly pleasant, with the caveat that this perfection is supported by, and reliant upon, the constant suffering of a single child. To alleviate the child’s suffering would relieve the town of that which magically makes it such a utopian place to be, and as a result, the child remains suffering. When the children of the town are considered old enough to understand, they are brought to see the child, so that they too may understand the foundation upon which their fortune is based; and as a rule, the vast majority of the inhabitants understands and accepts this trade-off; but some do not.

Those are the Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas; they may be children, they may be adults. But either way, at some point in their lives, they realize they cannot accept the suffering of a child in exchange for their own happiness, and so they leave the utopia of Omelas. It is never explained why or to where, merely that “they know where they are going”.

And this is the part of the story, morally speaking, that I cannot comprehend. I can perfectly understand the utilitarianism view- that the child’s suffering maintains the utopia for tens or hundreds of thousands, and as a result, is justified- exitus acta probat, ‘the result validates the deed’.

I could understand if the ones who walked away from Omelas sought to change it, either from within by convincing their fellows to abandon their utopia in the name of justice, or from without through force of arms (not that it would be particularly difficult, as apparently even a kind word is enough to dispel the utopia).

Instead, they merely walk away, never to return. It seems to be as though this is an endemic method of dealing with third party moral quandaries in today’s world. We find China’s human rights record to be abhorrent- and yet we take no overt action. One could argue, indeed, that the situation with China is not similar; we do take action with China over their human rights record. We refrain from full-scale military action because it is not politically or militarily expedient.

However, those who walk away from Omelas appear to have no such concerns. The thought does not appear to enter their minds to take action against Omelas, itself, something they consider unjust- they merely remove themselves from it, in a way, perhaps, attempting to separate the moral responsibility. The responsibility for the child is no longer theirs- they take nothing from the child. Others, indeed, are benefiting from this captive, and not they.

And yet, the sense has always been in my mind, that this is nothing more than a smoke-screen. A tacit acceptance through willful ignorance is still acceptance, but of a less moral character; it is one thing to accept a harm done, knowing full well that you are doing harm but accepting it because the result is important. It is another thing entirely to accept a harm done without complaint because you looked away; that is instead moral cowardice, not strength. The ones who walk away from Omelas pretend that they do not see, in order that they may consider themselves more ‘pure’.

This I cannot accept. I am willing to accept a difference in moral values- so long as you are willing to openly embrace those values, rather than hiding behind them when it becomes convenient to do so.

When is gross misconduct wrong?

There is what one might consider a small controversy (and I keep wanting to pronounce that cont-rov-ersy, instead of contro-versey, how I usually pronounce it) around here. A university student (and you can find citations at both the CBC and Slashdot) faces 147 counts of academic misconduct after creating a study group on Facebook.

Normally I would not comment other than to point out that "University politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.", but in this case I think issue warrants more of a digression.

At issue there generally appear to be two sides, one of which is exemplified in the standard Slashdot groupthink and the other of which tends more toward the CBC's own comment pages. The former is the view that education is pretty much free and people should be able to do whatever they like- including form study groups. Moreover, this group would argue, the university is being totalitarian and overbearing, as usual, and should leave its students alone (after all, they have rights). The latter would argue that they're cheating and youngsters these days need to have their mouths cleaned out with soap and learn the meaning of honesty and integrity.

I find both views to be lacking. There is, to some extent, a public policy objective to be fulfilled in ensuring that students do not graduate from university entirely incompetent in the subject matter with which they have supposedly been educated; would you appreciate it if your doctor was unable to tell the difference between a metacarpal and a metatarsal? (They are the long bones of the hand and of the foot, respectively.) There is also, to a great extent, a public policy objective to be fulfilled in granting freedom of association and expression to students. It is, in many ways, a similar debate that rages about the inclusion of illegally obtained evidence; should evidence, which if entered into the court would cause the subject to be found guilty, entered into the record despite the fact that it was illegally obtained? How about if, without said evidence, the suspect would walk free, despite the evidence clearly indicating beyond a reasonable doubt as to their guilt?

That is the argument from inside the box. However, there is an argument that exists outside the box. Namely, is it wrong to cheat? Is it wrong to lie? I have not answered this above; one can cheat and still graduate an educated student. One can lie, collaborate, or write down the names of the 206 bones in the body in microprint on one's foreskin, and still be a good doctor. One can fail to memorize the list of crucial decisions that led to the establishment of the current views surrounding freedom of speech, and still be a good lawyer. Some of those individuals speaking at the CBC's message boards believe that students should have mandatory ethics courses in first year.

I will point out that back during my own first undergraduate year, I did take professional ethics. Out of three papers, one defended lying and one gross professional misconduct, arguing both were situationally dependent and could often be ethical or even ethically necessary. Both arguments were well received, because they were well supported, ethically, in both cases by essentially the same argument- that a greater good was served by ethically dubious behavior on the small scale.

In fact, the same argument applies here. Even were we to assume that the individual present is guilty of gross academic misconduct (which is itself a dubious accusation) that does not make such an action ethically unfavorable without more argument. In fact, one could argue that if he was providing a service to his peers that served to forward their educations and his own, his action was ethically justified despite being gross academic misconduct.

In this case, I think the issue is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. There is no real ethical argument to be satisfied and I believe the claim of gross academic misconduct is dubious at best and dishonest and offensive at worst.

However, even as a student of law, I find it somewhat disheartening that the question immediately focused on ideology and semantics (as perhaps polarized as the two may be) rather than examining the basic elements of ethical behavior involved.