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

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

91–99 of 99 posts

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

#91
post #88
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using a moderate, prescribed dose of Vyvanse/Adderall, I've always basically always had ADHD type symptoms and it was never a huge issue, but I never took any pills until I was an adult in an attempt to focus and get promoted at my big 4 job. It ended up backfiring as I had a manic/psychotic episode, which led to highly erratic behavior that led to me losing my job, burning all my career bridges, etc. Then I al…

I have to ask, how much were you taking, and how often? And were you mixing it with caffeine?

Without context it's hard to conceptualize their experience.

Did they start with 5mg Ritalin/day or 20mg adderal 3x/day? Did they take it exactly as prescribed? Did they get 7-8 hours of sleep every day? If they started with 3x20/day and didn't sleep for 36 hours before before having a psychotic beak, well that's to be expected..

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

#92

Interesting read. I've always assumed that prescription drug pushing and addiction problems were a modern phenomenon, so it's interesting to read about drug companies developing and pushing addictive drugs almost a century ago.

In addition to Coca-cola famously using coca leaves in its original recipe, 7 Up contained lithium citrate, a mood stabilizer.

Believe me when I say lithium isn't particularly enjoyable

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

#93
post #74
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/illegal// Alcohol is a very popular form of self-medication.

Also sugar. I might call industrial food in general a drug -- the refined addictive parts of plants mostly like opiates, cocaine, etc

Can TV (or YT) also count? Or sex. So many ways claiming to help you to fill the void. :)

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

#94
post #67

When Ronald Graham, a concerned friend and fellow mathematician, bet him [Erdos] $500 that he couldn’t stay off his drug of choice for a month, Erdos accepted and easily won the challenge. When the 30 days was up, Erdos said to Graham, “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You…

Does this amphetamine use constitute abuse? Drug abuse is typically defined as use that creates negative effects to the person's social and/or personal health. It seems to me his drug use gave him the ability to work at a high level and allowed him to derive self-worth from that work. He was also able to discontinue the drug use at will. Even if there were some negative health side-effects, I wonder if abuse should be the term used here.

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

#95
(throwaway just in case, although i do not keep it a secret from friends)

tl;dr; No, amphetamines are not pleasant/euphoric for everyone. Not everyone get high/wired/"sped up" on it. Not a wonder drug for everyone. May help with depression induced by anxiety induced by not getting shit done (not necessarily by getting something done, but instead switching attention away from things not done).

My whole life I was not able to do much of mental work during the day, with my most productive time being around midnight +- 3-4 hours. I kinda just lived with it considering it being due to the way I grew up. I got my first full time job at around 25 yo (before that it was freelancing) and got hit hard with a "normal" schedule (be at work at 8am, leave office at 5pm, try to fall asleep at 11pm to be ready to wake at 7am next day). That was a time I started drinking coffee. It used to give me goosebumps, even at a small sip from a typical office low-end brewing machine. Did not really helped much, but I think it gave me that initial boost and I stuck with it. Nowadays I almost never drink tea (used to be my exclusive brewed beverage) and mostly drink coffee.

Fast forward in my earlier 30ties. I get quite regularly severe depression-like (never diagnosed) periods. Trying different things, reading a lot online. Eventually meeting with psychiatrist explaining what is going on (can't do stuff during the day, getting depressed quite regularly about it, bunch of other shit) suspecting all of that causing anxiety which metamorphosing into depression. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure if it is true physiological condition or just some period in my life where my habits and life stage got in conflicts with each others. I read about ADHD and it seemed quite familiar. I also considered bi-polar condition, but psychiatrist ruled it out.

As for ADHD, psychiatrist was very reluctant to write such a diagnose given that I had relatively good life (good income, lack of destructive impulsive actions affecting life quality, family, job, etc). He started me at 5mg extended release. It did literally nothing. Over months trying he bumped it to 25mg XR and after that failed to produce any noticeable effect, he suggested to try 20mg instant release twice a day. Safe long-term maintenance dose accordingly to FDA is 70mg. At that point I certainly felt some effect, but I am not quite sure it is what everyone think it feels like.

First of all, very counter-intuitive - amphetamine often makes me sleepy and tired. But if I try to take a nap, I almost never can truly fall asleep. Most of the time I just end up laying in the bed with closed eyes. The whole experience doesn't feel energizing or euphoric at all.

Secondly, on many days it appears to reduce anxiety about "getting something done" to the point where I did not experience my regular depression episodes this year.

With instant release, I have to take it twice a day. I often forget to take second pill. Sometimes I forget to take a first one. I tried nicotine vape earlier, and i dont think i ever forgot to take vape mod with me, or keeping it full and charged.

With 20mg instant release I sometimes experienced "locked down" feeling, which I found quite unpleasant. Not sure if it is that "focus" feeling everyone is talking about, but it certainly was different from focus I get when I am "in the zone" (the pleasant one). My solution was to break 20mg in half and take 10mg each 2hrs. Downside - I get more chances to forget about it during the day.

Going higher than 20mg twice a day seems to be pointless, as I already prefer to break 20mg twice a day to 10mg four times a day. It also raises blood pressure noticeably, and I would expect higher dose will do it even more. Effects of it are certainly not pleasant enough for me to even consider taking it recreationally. But it seems to help with depression/anxiety episodes - so far one year, will see how it will feel next spring, as it is the time I had the most of these episodes. So it seems this crutch is helping me somewhat.

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

#96
post #83
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primarily the site implies moving off of the gold standard in 1971 was main trigger. This decouples the growth of money, value of assets, wages, productivity, etc. which all tracked together in the preceding thirty years.

The years around 1970 are one of those inflection points that is a lot like the causes of the Industrial Revolution: it can't be summed into a few easy factors. For me the defining thing is the emergence of the USA from the postwar politics and policies and into more of an assumed administrator of the globalization project, a status that it retained until just recently. Besides the information systems, international…

Gold was the inflection point. It wasn’t just the US economy you will find a similar inflection point around the world. Even if all the other factors remained the same but the world had stayed on Breton Woods, the economic change that could have occurred since 1970 would have been orders of magnitude less.

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

#97
post #67

When Ronald Graham, a concerned friend and fellow mathematician, bet him [Erdos] $500 that he couldn’t stay off his drug of choice for a month, Erdos accepted and easily won the challenge. When the 30 days was up, Erdos said to Graham, “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You…

Does this amphetamine use constitute abuse? Drug abuse is typically defined as use that creates negative effects to the person's social and/or personal health. It seems to me his drug use gave him the ability to work at a high level and allowed him to derive self-worth from that work. He was also able to discontinue the drug use at will. Even if there were some negative health side-effects, I wonder if abuse should b…

"Use" vs "abuse" is generally an ideological choice, not really related to the actual use of a substance. If someone uses the word "abuse" in situations like that, it's clear that they are a prohibitionist, to whom all use is abuse.

Of course, egregious examples can very well be classed as abuse. But if someone classifies examples like the one you reference as abuse, then they're a prohibitionist, plain and simple.

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

#98
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

Hi Everyone, Thanks for the insight. More than I have seen in the many articles I have scanned. I have seen quite a few suggestions to take a break periodically from AHDH meds to help keep tolerance down in other places, but I always wondered what the heavy users were doing.

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

#99
post #98
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

Hi Everyone, Thanks for the insight. More than I have seen in the many articles I have scanned. I have seen quite a few suggestions to take a break periodically from AHDH meds to help keep tolerance down in other places, but I always wondered what the heavy users were doing.

I've read the opposite. You don't want to lower tolerance cause of the high.

Tolerance builds very fast in a matter of days, so you'll have normal effects.

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