Psychostimulants show the classic nootropic bell curve response, and they also increase performance on standardized tests of nootropic activity.

However, they also are frequently strongly-reinforcing drugs of abuse, and cannot be given an unqualified bill of safety. (although they are safer than many other drugs in low doses, where they also have the most positive effects on intelligence.).

However, they do have an accepted medical use, and in this area their use is appropriate. The human race has a genetic variant which is called by many people the "novelty seeking" gene. Basically, people with this variant, have problems with dopamine metabolism. Psychostimulants in low doses alleviate some of this deficiency.

A sad commentary on our society is that many of the people who have been condemmed to the margins of society for drug-related activity are probably reacting to this genetic need for dopamine augmentation. Access to medical services and economic background is probably the determining factor.

And many years of research has verified again and again, that almost all abused drugs work through dopamine pathways, which are by definition, highly reinforcing. (The hypothesis I am trying to put forward here is that in many people, normal dopamine metabolism is broken.)

The most common manifestation of dopamine metabolism abnormailities is ADD/ADHD.

Grow up white and middle-class, in a caring family, with ADD, and today, there is a fairly good chance that this condition will be understood and treated. Grow up black or poor, with ADD, and the chances for that happening are slim. Instead, the overwhelming obstacles presented by society's denial of the ongoing and long-standing causes of poverty and marginalization, and society's misunderstanding of these genetic conditions are inherent stressors, and the inherited dopaminergic predisposition means that factors like exposure to psychostimulants will frequently have a terrible outcome. Some educated people know this, but somehow, there is a conspiracy of silence. Why?

Tragedy. Even if someone can overcome the odds, say with access to a supportive environment and if needed, therapy, (unlikely) the chances are that coming through this experience of societal recrimination will leave serious, permanent scars. Self-esteem is the crucial issue here. Twelve-step programs or religious cults in their preaching of total abstinence will not help either. What will help is a two-pronged approach. Treat the person's emotional scars and if a neurogenetic cause for the situation exists, treat the underlying cause of the problem. And for some people, low doses of dopamine augmenting psychostimulants are appropriate, in-fact, they sometimes mean the difference between a life of economic viability and a life at the margins.

Our society is very unforgiving of people with even mild disabilities.

It is very important for people to understand that a huge amount of the reason for our society's perceived drug "problem" is undoubtably genetic. If people could un-judgementally receive treatment for the conditions which lie at the root of a 'need' for dopaminergic drugs of abuse, (and *all* drugs of abuse are dopaminergic in some way) the ones with underlying dopamine metabolism problems wouldn't have the same need to over-abuse illegal drugs, and this could save society untold billions of dollars.

And a lot of grief.

Police departments and prisons could be cut back and the money spent on improving schools and public colleges to accomodate the millions of people who would be hoping to return to school.