Silicon Valley's new-agers of the early 1990s preached that smart drugs would be the future. Access to pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals would not only allow us to live longer and have better skin but would improve our cognitive faculties, everything from intelligence through to concentration and memory.

 

Amidst their hippy-drippy visions of a smart drug panacea, however, the new age lot failed to recognise the wider social implications. Concern has already been raised in the US that use of smart drugs is undermining SAT tests. If cognitive enhancers become commodities then access to them becomes pegged to one's financial muscle. Artificial cognitive augmentation becomes the preserve of the rich and another barrier to social mobility for those lacking the resources to purchase them. Ultimately, the fear is that these nootropics will eventually invalidate any standard by which to judge natural ability.

 

It's a long way from popping Pro-Plus caffeine pills to aid revision. Thankfully, however, at least the latter should prove easier thanks to Pretox beverages. The Pretox concept, owned by Alibi, is about as smart as smart drugs can get. Prior to leeching ever ounce of goodness from your body through a cocktail of drink and drugs 'pretoxify' yourself by imbibing a vaccinating blend of amino-acids, vitamins and herbal extracts.

 

After around nine thousand years of imbibing fermented fruits and barleys, has mankind finally found a cure for the common hangover? Probably not. But at least admitting our inevitable failure to stay fit, healty and sober, by self-medicating ourselves in advance, displays the sort of perverse logic that only the future could be made of.