For May's edition of Nothing to Watch on Netflix, Mick watched a documentary called Take Your Pills.
Take Your Pills shines a spotlight on an often unnoticed and forgotten epidemic sweeping America: the widespread use and abuse of prescription ADD/ADHD medications, with a specific focus on Adderall.
This documentary is chilling because it brings to light the fact that a massive swath of the population is using amphetamine, the chemical branded as Adderall. A large, diverse cast of individuals using Adderall are the focus of this documentary in order to show just how far this epidemic reaches. Of course, there are a slew of college/high school students in addition to a software engineer, a talent agent, and a stock broker.
To balance out this portrait of everyday people who use this drug, there are also a variety of doctors, experts, and talking heads that throw in their two cents on the Adderall epidemic as well, while also going into detail about what amphetamine is and how it affects our bodies. Spoiler alert: it's not good.
In addition to all of the extremely valuable and interesting information that is overflowing from this film, it is also beautifully shot and the director, Alison Klayman, injects a healthy dose of surrealism to communicate the anxiety and discomfort that being on an ridiculous amount of amphetamine can cause.
The thing that's particularly complicated is that this film shows viewers that there are two types of Adderall users: the ones who legitimately need it and the ones who use it to get an edge in our hyper competitive civilization. In all, it's a deeply thoughtful meditation on the utility and cost of this medication.
Check it out!