Then over years of us and accumulated data, people will realize that they can't game a complex system that the body needs like sleep with a simple drug, and those "healthy" wakefulness drugs will either be banned or face lots of controversy.
That's almost exactly what people said about the appetite -- about the biochemical pathways which govern hunger, which are known to be massively redundant and overlapping.
But then Ozempic was released and it turned out there was a shortcut after all.
Which is not to say that such things are necessarily "healthy" or desirable, just that you can't rule out that biochemically-modifiable characteristics, however complex, have "one simple trick!" you can use to attain a desired end.
There are mountains of data that show it actually has long term benefits beyond weight loss (beyond even the obvious health markers that improve due to losing weight). I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the majority of the population ends up taking next gen drugs in this space, most of them purely for longevity.
Proof? Doesn't need to be specific -- a general study showing higher all-cause mortality in Ozempic users compared to a control group over a long period would be just fine.
Then over years of us and accumulated data, people will realize that they can't game a complex system that the body needs like sleep with a simple drug, and those "healthy" wakefulness drugs will either be banned or face lots of controversy.