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Amphetamine use in America's workforce

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Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#61

Post by chm »

lfowles wrote: post #55
chm wrote: post #50

A word of caution to those readers who might want to try self-medicating: I have used pharmaceutical grade methylphenidate and amphetamines. The former inevitably led to suicidal thoughts and feelings or worthlessness at the end of the day (i.e. once the dose is gone). This happened to all of my peers who tried it. The effects were mild, but still quite noticeable. And we were healthy (both mentally and physically) y…

What kind of doses were those? I'm honestly curious what kind of doses are used "recreationally", since I was titrated over months until the APRN and I found a dose that fit and didn't have alarming side effects.

They were Concerta (extended release) 36mg. We also had 54mg capsules once or twice. We all weighed around 140 pounds at the time.

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#63

Post by llamataboot »

yarou wrote: post #49
tcj_phx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There have been studies showing that amphetamine leads to definitive cognitive improvement in the general population. Stimulants cause people to become psychotic. Some are more vulnerable to this effect than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis#Su... There are better, safer ways to cause a "cognitive improvement in the general population".

If you take an excess of any chemical substance, there will be consequences. Barring an underlying latent condition, amphetamine use at therapeutic levels causes cognitive improvement in the general population with minimal risks.

You must know different people than I do if everyone you know taking amphetamines is always taking them at low-levels ;)

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#64

Post by viewer5 »

ta_339393 wrote: post #38
yarou wrote: post #19

This article is pretty poorly written. First off, methylphenidate is a phenethylamine - not an amphetamine. Its chemical structure doesn't resemble amphetamine. Secondly, Adderall is not simply dextroamphetamine, it is a racemic mixture of both amphetamine salts. There have been studies showing that amphetamine leads to definitive cognitive improvement in the general population. Why restrict it? Human beings have a s…

Actually Adderall is not racemic, since that would mean a 50/50 mix of the dextrorotatory and levorotatory enantiomers. Adderall is 75% dextroamphetamine and 25% levoamphetamine in four different salts.

What's the purpose of including both? Does each one serve a different purpose in the medication?

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#65

Post by HillaryBriss »

bluedino wrote: post #25

Articles are either "We should be helping people with problems by giving them these medications", or "Doctors are over-medicating everyone. It has to stop!"

Yeah. Sometimes it seems like there's a standard cycle:

1. Drug X works wonders for millions who suffer with Syndrome Z. But these evil politicians and FDA bureaucrats won't let people use it. Call your congressional rep and demand support for HR ABC123 today. Stop the suffering!

2. (2-5 years later) Is Drug X Causing Millions to get Disease Y? Look at this new study released by the highly respected "Famous University". Mortality went up, and, even worse, Drug X is no better than a placebo!

3. Greedy Big Pharma has been pushing pseudo-cure Drug X and it's destroying people's lives. Call your congressional rep and demand support for HR XYZ789 today!

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#66

Post by eridius »

llamataboot wrote: post #32
eridius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with ADHD react to amphetamines differently than people without it (at the correct dosages at least; I've never read anything about what happens to people with ADHD that take more than the correct dosage).

I'd love to see some sort of double-blind study that bears this out, as I have serious doubts as to its veracity as ADHD is a huge spectrum of ambiguous symptoms. No doubt there are some people that have a lot harder time focusing than others, and there's no doubt stimulants help you focus, so in that case someone that has a harder time focusing might find them more beneficial, but the oft-repeated canard that stimul…

You seem to be equating therapeutic doses of amphetamines with recreational doses (i.e. overdosing). The amount of amphetamines people take for recreational purposes or for those all-nighters and whatnot are more than what people take for medicinal purposes. So it's not some magical bright line that makes amphetamines good for some people and bad for others. But it is a condition that makes therapeutic doses beneficial for some people, with different effects than people without the condition have when taking that kind of dosage (I assume that if someone with ADHD overdoses they'll see similar effects to someone without, but I don't know anyone who overdoses so I have no concrete knowledge of that). Your comment is dangerously close to "ADHD isn't real" and that bothers me.

> In any case, we can keep pretending that stimulants are just good medicine for a vaguely nebulous diagnosis and poison for everyone else

That is a gross misstatement of the position you're arguing against.

> As far as long term effects of taking amphetamines every day, especially starting from childhood...well, we're running a population wide experiment on that now

Amphetamines were discovered over 100 years ago, and have been used for therapeutic purposes since 1935. In fact, it appears that as early as 1937 amphetamines were being tested on children with severe behavioral problems (i.e. what would be finally classified as ADHD). We may be using amphetamines much more often now for therapeutic purposes, but pretending that nobody has been taking amphetamines long-term until recently is wrong.

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#67

Post by ta_339393 »

eridius wrote: post #51
ta_339393 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false and a common myth. If this was true then we would have the perfect test for ADHD, just give someone some stimulants and see how they react.

Speaking as someone who's wrestled with ADHD all my life, as has my spouse, this is definitely not false. And your claimed test makes no sense; if you haven't exhibited symptoms of ADHD, how can those symptoms be erased?

Perhaps I misunderstood your comment, you said that people with ADHD react differently and I was assuming you meant they do not respond in the same manor as someone else who just took a stimulant.

Often you hear this saying that people with ADHD feel relaxed when they take a stimulant and don't feel any increased energy or mood lift, which of course is false. That's what I was referring to.

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#68

Post by chillingeffect »

_acme wrote: post #48

Why does this article describe these stimulants as "narcotics"? They are neither opioids nor illegal when prescribed, so it seems like a needlessly provocative, and factually incorrect, description.

Because the authoritarian state uses an in-language to signal virtue, overstepping denotations. These are the same people who call non-cops "civilians."

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#69

Post by duggan »

nemo44x wrote: post #43
fixermark wrote: post #30

I can't help but ask myself whether we should be wondering why Americans can't make it without drug-modified behavior, or whether this is better or worse than alternatives such as cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, etc. Humans in societies have been chemically altering their moods since we discovered mood-altering chemicals. Stress occurs inside and outside civilized workforces, and people take measures to mitigate stres…

Anecdotally I think Europeans are more likely to self medicate with alcohol and cigarettes rather than prescription pills which are more common in the USA. In my experience the culture around having a few drinks after work and even having the occasional cigarette is far more relaxed in the European countries I've been to than just about anywhere in the USA. But as I've said, I have zero evidence that any of this is e…

In any of the companies I've worked with or visited in my times in the US (SF, specifically), lunchtime drinking was pretty common, and practically unheard of in my European experience.

Like yourself, I wouldn't want to extrapolate a broader trend from that, just providing a counter-anecdote.

Think on smoking we've probably had a similar experience though. I don't think I even know an American that smokes (cigarettes), let alone seen it at a workplace. In Europe, it'd be weird if there weren't a couple of people in any office that didn't have an obvious habit.

Re: Amphetamine use in America's workforce

#70

Post by Vraxx »

justin_vanw wrote: post #29
schrodinger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was a myth that has been dispelled. Do you have any research to back that up?

Yes this is a myth, it has the same effect on everyone.

Not trying to disregard this sentiment present in the thread, but I could easily see it having the same physical effects, but how exactly do they quantify how it affects your brain processes and how you feel.

Anecdotally, I knew some people who took adderall in college that were not prescribed it and it seemed to cause them to have different behavior than myself. A similar situation, I would imagine, is how alcohol affects people differently. Maybe not physically, but you definitely see a wide range of actions and behaviors elicited among different individuals.

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