I could highlight this whole response, honestly! Yes, I almost got into it but I decided to hold off because I know Jess has a piece coming up on the subject, but totally, the medical model of disorder makes it so much easier to "justify" drugs without challenging any of our pre-existing values and assumptions.

Jess has even made the case that biochemically Ritalin is not all that distinct from demonized stimulants like meth, and that much of the justification for putting kids on Ritalin when they are young is so that they don't get addicted to other stimulants (like meth) when they are older...though Ritalin can have the same habit-forming qualities, needs to have doses ramped up, can be addictive, and all those other risky features -- though obviously it can help people immensely too. And from there I can't help but think about how different drugs receive different criminal sentences for entirely superficial reasons -- coke being more forgivable in society's eyes than crack because of racism, and on and on.

Our culture is so moralizing that "it helps people" or "it makes people happy" isn't seen as a virtuous enough justification, which is really a shame. I think it forces us to try and jam so many basic human needs and pleasures into a medical model unnecessarily now that you mention it -- I can think of articles I've seen that present sex or naps or masturbation as if they're prescriptions for boosting your mood or creativity, rather than goods unto themselves. And when we only accept or can justify a good in terms of "needing" it medically, we aren't really giving people the freedom to make their own choices about what they need and what feels good, they have to prove their needs are respectable or valid to some government or medical body, which has a lot of its own problems wrapped up in it...