Howard Markel and Frederick Crews Argument about Freud's Cocaine Dream - Essay Example

Therefore, the essay is about Howard Markel and Frederick Crew’s argument about Freud's cocaine dream. Argument According to Markel, Freud thought that the application of cocaine in medical research and solution to human problems would enhance his reputation as a pioneer in medical anthropology (17). However, with increase in addiction, he questioned the safety of cocaine in medical application. Precisely, the addiction and subsequent overdose of the drug filtered and tarnished Freud’s reputation as a medical researcher (Markel 22).

Furthermore, Markel indicated that Freud had no explanation for the increase in addiction and should have reconsidered his recommendation for the use of cocaine in healing the medical problems (25). Despite the general agreement among the scholars that taking cocaine actually relieves the patients of depression and other psychological problems, it prolonged use would lead to addiction that affects the health of an individual. As a result, Freud’s recommendations on its medical use could not offer solution to the patients’ problems, but created drug addiction that is not easy to solve (Markel 49).

Fredrick Crew wondered how Freud could justify the use of one drug to cure the addiction of another. In fact, he claimed that this was not practical as the consequences of drug use would lead to a similar addiction and subsequent abuse (Markel 77). According to Karch, “It is important to understand that death from acute cocaine toxicity is a relatively rare event, essentially only seen in ‘body packers’ or ‘body stuffers’ who find themselves exposed to massive, multigram quantities of cocaine.

Otherwise, the only cocaine users likely to become seriously ill or die are the chronic users” (2007). . ocaine’s recommendation shows that he had not done research on the future of this drug on the users; therefore they were not acceptable (Markel 182). He dissented from the claim that Freud’s ideas had resulted to the cure of the psychosomatic ailments such as depression, emotional conflict. Instead, he pointed out that such ailments results from the day-to-day occurrences and solving them would mean satisfying the human needs, including food, shelter, and other social well-being (247).

Indeed, this would alleviate the problem of dug addiction, during the search for a medical solution to the human psychological disorders. In addition, the scholars showed that the people with behavioral problems are under the influence of drug addiction might not have sufficient proof, but merely a dream (Markel 266). In other way, they argued that Freud’s psycho-analysis might be the best solution to solve drug addiction cases as opposed to the application of another stimulant drug such as cocaine, which has far-reaching negative impacts on the user’s health (Markel 281).

In the pretence of growth and civilization, Freud did not believe that the drug users are suffering from the impacts of superstition or past behavior (Markel 293). Mostly, the causes of such actions and continuous problems associated with drug usage are by chance. However, Crew assets that the discoveries that Freud made, should form the basis of further research on the application, without discrediting them at first sight (Markel 299). He indicates that the theories and other useful findings could be developed to provide better solution to the human problems, which characterize the modern society.

As well, the scholars denoted that the anesthetic use of such drugs had more disadvantages than the anticipated