What do we know about self-medication with psychoactive drugs? A reading from neuroenhancement

Abstract

This work is proposed as a conceptual framework that seeks to contribute to the understanding and research of the problem of self-medication with psychoactive drugs, in particular, the case of neuroenhancement. This phenomenon involves various problems, categories and edges that prevent it from being reduced to any particular analysis. The analysis from medicalization and social control is a contribution, but it is insufficient to understand the heterogeneity of this phenomenon. On the other hand, the analyzes from the moral discussion on the non-medical use of medical technologies, likewise, which, from the perspective of risk, elude the contingent nature of the use of psychoactive drugs on their own. Particularly the practice of neuroenhancement, from the perspective of use, shows how moral dilemmas are overcome by a pragmatic approach at the time of choosing to resort to the drug, from a theoretical point of view. It problematizes how the concepts of self-medication and medicalization can be put in tension, that is why it will be taken as a model of self-medicated practice, for the development of this work.