The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it

One very strong reason to doubt that heavy metals, such as lead or mercury, play a large role in the meth crisis, is that heavy metal poisoning has telltale signs and symptoms that would not go unnoticed. Furthermore, we have excellent methods for the determination of Pb and Hg in the bloodstream, and there simply isn't any corresponding epidemic of heavy metal poisoning.

Also, a nitpick: the author refers to the condensation product of benzaldehyde and nitroethane, which is phenyl-2-nitropropene, abbreviated P2NP, incorrectly. He calls it "nitrostyrene (NTS)", which is the one-carbon-shorter homolog.

The other thing to keep in mind is that higher production volumes mean longer supply chains, and with illegal drugs longer supply chains mean more cuts (usually sugars, rarely toxic per se), and more cuts means an increased variance in the potency of the retail product, and variance in potency leads to users accidentally taking more than they intended to. The toxic effects of most drugs have a supralinear dose-response relationship, so these unexpectedly high doses can lead to problems that don't "average out". Often we over-focus on toxic fillers, but forget the risks created even by nontoxic fillers.

while I genuinely agree with your intent, I don't think abstinence has been very good at achieving the outcome we're hoping for.

Education, not fear is what allows people to decide for themselves if they want to try/use something and it seems more likely that if/when they try these substances they'll at least be prepared for the consequences and be more likely to be responsible with their use.

Anecdotally I have many friends who were taught abstinence. Once they got into weed they realized just how much of a lie abstinence teaching was, they then graduated to trying other drugs, but not responsibly, because they had no idea how these other drugs worked. They had no idea what an OD might look like or what the risk of getting poor quality drugs might do. e.g. look at cocaine - how many people have any clue what that is cut with? I'd imagine almost every single one of my friends couldn't tell you what north american cocaine is predominantly cut with and they couldn't tell you what to do in the event of an OD, or what the exact symptoms of a cocaine OD even are! The lack of education is terrifying, really.

Methylphenidate is a non amphetamine derivatived stimulant, and is widely used for ADHD treatment.

Totally agreed. Expanding a bit on some of the stuff you mentioned:

Vyvanse hits C_max around 3 to 3.5 hours. But you'll hit the maximum "acceleration" (as opposed to "velocity") around 1-2 hours like you said.

Fun fact: Vyvanse was basically designed to have more meth-like pharmacokinetics, since meth also takes about 3-3.5 hours to peak in the blood. Having done both lisdexamfetamine and d-methamphetamine orally, the C_max numbers in the literature are definitely correct because those numbers line up perfectly with when I subjectively peak.

> Adderall achieves a similar end (to a lesser degree) by combining equal ratios of four different amphetamine salts with various absorption rates to smooth out the serum concentration curve.

Yup, and I forget the exact mechanism but I have seen a paper arguing that the 75:25 ratio actually does improve the efficacy. Although I can't remember what the mechanism actually was...

> Dexedrine and Desoxyn I believe are both single salt compounds, and thus have a slightly higher risk of dependency due to their sharper peaks

Correct, both are 100% d-enantiomer, and both due have somewhat sharper peaks as a result. Although to elaborate AFAIK Vyvanse is really the only super unique one. Adderral does/should have a slightly smoother peak but largely the levoamphetamine seems to serve to up the norepinephrine-y effects (that is to say, the "I need to be doing something right now" effects, whereas dopamine is moreso the "once I start something I can keep doing it" effects).

Also methamphetamine in particular when taken orally is very vyvanse-like, as I mentioned above. So it's really exclusively with the fast RoAs like smoking or injecting it where you get the really crazy instant spike. (That last sentence is just from my general understanding, I've never taken meth in a non-oral RoA so I can't speak from experience)

Sorry for the confusing terminology. "Peripheral stimulation" means unwanted stimulation of the body itself, such as suppressed appetite, general jitteriness, and the like. Whereas the cerebral effects are the actual cognitive effects of improved attention/focus/alertness/scanning behavior, euphoria, and that kind of thing.

In general when taking amphetamines for ADHD-type symptoms, you want to maximize the cerebral stimulation while minimizing the peripheral stimulation, because the latter causes [most of] the unpleasant side effects like inability to eat/sleep. Note that some degree of peripheral stimulation is unavoidable regardless of whether one is taking pure d-methamphetamine or not, and also probably some amount of peripheral stimulation is desirable because ADHD is not just difficulty in maintaining focus/attention but also getting the kick in the ass to start tasks in the first place. But in my experience relying on the peripheral stimulation (which, for example, Adderall produces more of than Vyvanse) simply doesn't work long-term, and just makes appetite regulation and the like get totally out of whack.