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America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#41

Post by oarabbus_ »

HocusLocus wrote: post #17

What's next, "America's caffeine epidemic"? Interspersed with all this pedantry is a smarmy judgement towards stimulants and COMPLETE LACK of context of the times, and a lack of any societal or species context that recognizes the BREATHTAKING ACHIEVEMENTS during said times of "Oh so bad bad we should be ashamed it's an epidemic!" There's an undercurrent here that is almost criminal. The sin is not excess, certainly a…

5mg of amphetamine, while a light dose, is much stronger than a strong cup of coffee.

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#42

Post by oarabbus_ »

zafka wrote: post #37

One thing I hardly find documented is: what is the daily usage of the hard core users? How does it compare to the 10-60 mg daily dosages prescribed for ADHD

It's difficult to tell since so many street users of amphetamine are taking 200-500+mg of "street speed" per dose, which could be anywhere from 10-50%+ in purity.

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#43

Post by thatoneguy »

gerbilly wrote: post #21
ydb wrote: post #2

Most people would think the government is responsible for all these drug epidemics: the DEA jailing minorities on minor infractions or the CIA hustling cocaine between countries (look it up). But really the true culprit is just the youth, and always has been. Ever since the early 1900s traditional family values and social community/cohesion has been seriously on decline. Say what you will about Ted Kaczynski, but his…

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” ― Socrates

Not a real quote by Socrates, BTW. But by a Cambridge student in 1907.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#44

Post by throwaway_tech »

drewsmahgoos wrote: post #39
throwaway_tech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In what situation would you trust a study based on one person? Anytime someone else makes a blanket statement with no study (example: amphetamine doesn't make you crazy)...all you need is n=1 to disprove that.

But that goes both ways...

Proving and disproving a hypothesis are entirely different standards.

For example I have a coin with heads/tails, I hypothesis if I flip it it always lands on heads and we flip it 1 time (n=1), and sure enough it lands on heads that doesn't prove my hypothesis (its very weak support at best), whereas is we flip the coin 1 time (n=1) and its tails that disproves my hypothesis (or at least is strong support my hypothesis is wrong).

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#45

Post by dang »

HocusLocus wrote: post #17

What's next, "America's caffeine epidemic"? Interspersed with all this pedantry is a smarmy judgement towards stimulants and COMPLETE LACK of context of the times, and a lack of any societal or species context that recognizes the BREATHTAKING ACHIEVEMENTS during said times of "Oh so bad bad we should be ashamed it's an epidemic!" There's an undercurrent here that is almost criminal. The sin is not excess, certainly a…

Can you please not use allcaps for emphasis, even when commenting on caffeine and amphetamines?

This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#46

Post by dang »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #10
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really completely agree with this argument but I'd like to remind the HN community not to downvote simply because you disagree. I would argue that drug addiction is affecting older adults much more severely than youth. I can definitely agree that social cohesion in America has been somewhat awful for generations.

> I don't really completely agree with this argument but I'd like to remind the HN community not to downvote simply because you disagree. pg has explicitly said that downvotes on Hacker News can be used for disagreement. "Downvotes to express disagreement are part of the ethos of this site; it's a norm Paul Graham established almost a decade ago."

That quote is from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17613243, which was tptacek's.

But yes: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#47

Post by refurb »

zafka wrote: post #37

One thing I hardly find documented is: what is the daily usage of the hard core users? How does it compare to the 10-60 mg daily dosages prescribed for ADHD

With high doses every day you can develop an insane tolerance to amphetamines. 500mg in a day wouldn’t be that unusual.

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#48

Post by smileysteve »

refurb wrote: post #16

It’s always interesting to me how illegal drugs wax and wane in popularity. We like to blame opioid over-prescribing for the surge in opioid use, but there was also a heroin “epidemic” in the 1970’s that slowly petered out as cocaine became the focus in the 80’s.

> as cocaine became the focus in the 80’s

Well, we know more about this one now, thanks Reagan and Iran-Contra.

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#49

Post by blackflame »

smileysteve wrote: post #48
refurb wrote: post #16

It’s always interesting to me how illegal drugs wax and wane in popularity. We like to blame opioid over-prescribing for the surge in opioid use, but there was also a heroin “epidemic” in the 1970’s that slowly petered out as cocaine became the focus in the 80’s.

> as cocaine became the focus in the 80’s Well, we know more about this one now, thanks Reagan and Iran-Contra.

That cocaine didn't buy itself.

Re: America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

#50

Post by blackflame »

justwalt wrote: post #40
npo9 wrote: post #23

Do you want to reduce drug addiction? Make the world a better place. Everyone suffers so much. Loneliness, depression and anxiety and becoming more prevalent. These are increased risk factors for addiction.

Are you familiar with the rat park experiment? You’re making claims directly supported by its findings. One of the most interesting was that happy rats who had pleasant quarters and social interaction would choose not to take drugs (morphine, iirc) even if they had used them previously. Pretty interesting stuff.

The opposite of addiction is connection.
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