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Consumerism eats its children

Take Your Pills
Regissør: Alison Klayman
(USA)

Being chemically free of emotions, pain and fatigue can be good for your career. As long as it lasts.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

With his award-winning documentary debut Ai Weiwei, Never Sorry (2012), Alison Klayman became the youngest director ever to be named in The New York Times. This time, she's moving close to an entire generation – the one who grows up with the amphetamine derivatives Adderall and Ritalin as her daily dietary supplement. Take Your Pills carefully considers this insane human experiment, which is likely to have far-reaching societal consequences.

New human view

After one tacky video game aesthetic opening, Klayman leads us in a more subdued style through a daunting landscape of naivism, glorification and legitimization of drug use – not for the sake of intoxication, but for better performance. Parents' admonitions about what's good for us often go like a perpetual grinder throughout childhood, but here's the old-fashioned message of eating up the two rough-bread slices with yellowish swapped with the requirement to take their amphetamine. From being an aid to people with diagnosed ADHD, these drugs have become commonplace among healthy Americans as well, almost as a regular accessory to morning meals.

We want to have a society of artificially adapted, docile and high-performing individuals?

The fact that performance enhancers have long been in use in large parts of American society is well known from before. Adderall is now trading for a staggering 13 billion dollars annually, and Take Your Pills reveals widespread abuse in all age and professional groups. Contrary to what one would think, the abuse of the adults outweighs the young; For example, Wall Street and the IT industry are pushing 16 full-focus hours daily out of their employees.

This over-medication shows a whole new and disturbing view of humanity, where the individual is reduced to a type of capital that can be utilized hyper-optimally through the use of artificial stimuli. Amphetamine derivatives have almost become a necessary part of the winning formula in the performance community. The character and result hunt forces large numbers of resilient, skilled and healthy people to take central nervous stimulants to keep up with the pace of work.

"Everyone does it"

In the film, sports stars, Google employees and college students are portrayed with their illegal use. Few of them feel they are doing anything criminal – instead, they talk about how easily a medical certificate can be obtained and apologize for "everyone doing it". As a competing athlete, you get away with doping charges by using drugs prescribed by a doctor, but if you run out of the specific preparation and go to a similar one instead, you quickly get into trouble.

Ritalin and Adderall are exchanged over a low shoe through barter and sales. A sore knee or old injury is no obstacle with a little amphetamine sometimes a day! And the wife is glad that you finally have the energy to hang up your clothes and carry out the garbage. Everything is very good – until the day you collapse.

The cute, red-blond neighbor girl is popping pills, she too, without reflecting any further on the matter. Eagerly tasting on the mobile, she admits that it feels legitimate to use this type of drug, since the prevalence is so great and users speak quite openly about it. The film's popular cultural references to this acceptance are numerous – including a scene from the popular TV series Girls, where over-use of Adderall is covertly understood. Is it any wonder then that the young people are stuffing themselves with such means?

The skepticism of abuse diminishes in line with the generalization. I suddenly see how an employer checks the feed to a potential employee. He suddenly stops at an update, where various pills are posted to the public, just as freely as a smiling holiday picture. However, it is not this part of the picture that creates the employer's disapproval – on the contrary, the exposed applicant's bare chest.

Voluntary light lobotomy

According to the film, Norway ranks fourth in the world when it comes to the use of amphetamine derivatives. A pharmacist recently told me that some Norwegian regions are heavier in medication than others, which should be questioned by

I Take Your Pills children with ADHD and their parents stand and talk about ruined lives due to the side effects these drugs have: chemical deprivation of emotions and a destruction of the ability to feel pain and fatigue. What happens when the body's danger signals are suppressed and we are thus denied the opportunity to recover after exertion?

Amphetamine derivatives have almost become a necessary part of the winning formula in the performance community.

Over-use of amphetamine preparations will inevitably lead to a society of artificially adapted, docile and high-performing individuals. This is how individuals are slowly being consumed, but surely in the performance community. And we who participate in the canter seem willing to sacrifice ourselves in this race.

Clean image

The middle class and those who want it, are the biggest abusers of amphetamines. The poorer go to the drug's cheaper and more dangerous cousin, methamphetamine. The substances are not very different from each other, but the latter are linked to the horror image of a rapidly decomposed body. Why does Adderall get his innocent portrayal, the filmmaker asks.

The testimonies of improved relationships, optimized physical performance and performance-enhancing factors at the elite level are at some point in the process of sucking me into the hype; I almost want to make use of one quick fix self. Why strive hard, just to see that those who use some small pills surf past me in terms of performance?

At important exams and other competition arenas provide dope college kids make a decisive head start on its "pure" competitors. Many will do more, and the scruples are few. As the poor student in the movie says: Why shouldn't I let a pill help me regain the lead of the rich kids?

The overridden body

Amphetamine was first synthesized in 1880, and the film sparkles in its historical review of user groups ever since: everything from pilots in demanding quests during World War II through artists in search of awareness-raising experiences to housewives on dieting.

Take Your Pills round off with the next one drug choice: Microdosing of LSD and the Fleinsop derivative psilocybin has become commonplace both in Silicon Valley and in reading rooms here at home. The shortcut to creativity, mental endurance and increased focus does not appear narcotic when it comes in pill form. Many also say that with the help of the drugs, they manage to do without desertless hours on social media.

What are the consequences for the individual and for society when our natural body signals are overridden by chemistry?

Klayman places a legitimate spotlight on the competition society's expectations and demands. What are the consequences for the individual and for society when our natural body signals are overridden by chemistry?

Time will tell. Only the future can show what human and social consequences this giant experiment will have. Take Your Pills takes a clear stand, where long-term injuries are documented through emotional interviews with users, relatives and professionals.

A stockbroker at Adderall may be able to do more for the company and sleep a little less for a while – until the reserves are exhausted and he or she collapses. But then new, artificially stimulated mediator sprouts are ready to take over the place before colleagues have been called to the ambulance.

Ellen Lande
Ellen Lande
Lande is a film writer and director and a regular writer for Ny Tid.

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