Refusing One's Nature with Pharmaceuticals?

Are the solutions of ‘mental illness’ trying to refute a person’s nature?

I'm going to focus the way pharmaceuticals are used in America and other developed countries. If someone is diagnosed with a mental disorder it seems like this is going against the individual’s basic nature. The pettier mental illnesses which are apparently taking over many people in first world countries interests me. It seems that society, or maybe more specifically the government, has devised a way to make people act and behave similar. For instance, giving Adderal to a person who apparently ‘lacks focus and concentration’ can start taking the drug to help with his productivity building a certain amount of ‘x’. This ability may undermine the nature of an individual and can contribute to a variety of factors such as social control and ridiculous profits by the selling of pharmaceuticals.

 When doctors issue prescription drugs they are not really treating the illness at all. They are really just putting a cognitive bandaid on their patient’s brain. They are giving humans drugs which are ‘safe,’ but these drugs have only become popular since the late 20th century. They may appear to be safe, but what are the long term consequences of having your brain altered every day in a way it doesn’t normally function? When DDT first came out it was considered safe, but then it effected entire ecosystems and cause devastating effects on the well-being of many creatures. So what is Adderal for people with ADD really doing? Children will probably not develop the same if they are subjected to irregular mental states caused by the drugs. But this again calls to the question of what a proper mental state is,

This way of giving prescription drugs seems rather hypocritical when juxtaposed to the banning of narcotics and other drugs. What qualifies for a drug to be legal and illegal? If regulated and illegal drugs are both having such profound effects on the brain what makes one more valid than the other. Countless people testify on the behalf of spiritual experiences which seem far more greater to mental health than perhaps Zoloft or Concerta. Inner and transcendent awareness can help people regulate the body’s natural energy in a more concise manner by understanding the self and their own biochemistry. Marijuana for instance is another greatly debated drug, but why in the land of the free, should big corporations be able to distribute their drugs and not a naturally growing substance which someone could just happen to stumble upon it the wild (unlikely, but possible). 

I’m not saying that everyone should take illegal narcotics and everyone be under the influence of powerful psychoactives all the time. But they should have the choice to take them. Obviously people would need to use it in moderation, but distribution doesn’t necessarily concern me. Illegal drugs should be enforced similarly to alcohol laws, but depending on its power perhaps a way of prescription and diagnosis before hand. Driving while intoxicated should never be allowed for instance. It just brings back the question though of why chemical X is okay, but chemical Y is not. It seems that the idea of soma, such as in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, is coming to be a real thing. How we deal with our stresses and mental problems by taking the various pills proves it. Just because a doctor provides it and it has a nice commercial doesn’t mean it is necessarily good for you. The way we live by watching television and most diets today (and various other conditions) don’t seem to be effecting the health of mental functioning positively, so we turn to these quick fixes. We take our soma. Instead of looking for permanent solutions for our problems or “mental illnesses” we turn to synthetic drugs. Maybe instead we should be try finding other ways to change ourselves.