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An Experience with Modafinil

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Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#131
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

OK, I don't have any data either but I'd be pretty surprised if there were a lot of murders by people trying to acquire cocaine. I mean, it could be true? If you were seriously addicted but not high at the time, I expect you might feel agitated, but also kind of sorry for yourself / miserable and not so much in a murdering frame of mind. Large amounts of money (which large amounts of cocaine can be exchanged for), on…

Honestly I don’t know how prevalent murdering for drug money is at all. My belief that this happens with some regularity for cocaine is based on suspect info now that I think about it.

The DARE program told me that definitely 100% of illegal drug users eventually turn to murder to acquire more, but that might have been an exaggeration.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#132
post #27
post #2

Is this person insane? Four hours of sleep and six cups of coffee per day? Lay off the drugs and get a good 8 hours sleep.

They work in a hospital. I hear 4 hours a night is normal in med school. If I'm not mistaken, that same culture of chronic sleep deprivation is also present in hospitals, so they don't seem like an outlier to me. Perhaps someone with more experience can confirm this.

It's absurd really. Sleep deprived doctors with heavily impacted short-term memories are making life and death decisions for patients.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took it heavily in grad school. Prescribed off label for adhd. You can be in any state of exhaustion, take a modafinil, and an hour later feel like you just woke up on a Sunday morning after sleeping in. It’s nuts. The military uses it for fighter pilots. You can take it for days and only lose minimal amounts of reaction timing. At my peak, I stayed up for finals for a week straight with maybe 2 hours of sleep tota…

Does skipping sleep during finals affect your ability to recall the material long term?

I had to make something. It wasn’t a cramming session. If it was a mental task, I would have taken a different approach. But I needed more hours and I got them.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#134
post #49

What's remarkable to me is that modafinil is less toxic than caffeine[0], and possibly even less addictive[1], but we all know which is illegal for recreational use and which is coffee. Regulations are sticky. The FDA follows the precautionary principle. Political game theory incentivizes restricting what the electorate can do rather than giving them more freedoms, and being blamed for whatever harm may fall upon the…

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

No post body was provided.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#135

Modafinil is a pretty amazing drug. The come down after one use isn’t too bad. But if you’ve been using it daily for a week, the comedown is BRUTAL: pretty much feel like you have zero energy and feel like laying prone for 8 hours. Once did 48 straight awake on it and felt wide awake 36 hours in… Distinctly remember the 1st time I took it. Was perhaps 8pm at night and I swore it was 8am in the morning and I’d just ha…

Funny. The couple of times I took Modafinil, it might as well have been placebo. Absolutely no effect. I gave the pills away. I have ADD, and am prescribed 60mg Adderall XR/day. OTOH, I have slept on 30mg Adderall XR a couple of times, so maybe I'm just "built differently" w.r.t. The Stimmies.

This is a interesting one. I once heard a psychiatrist ask someone during an evaluation: have you ever borrowed Ritalin from your friends? Follow up question: did it work?

I guess this is a really nice hack he had: Has used Ritalin illegally? Increased probability of ADHD. Does it work? Even more increased probability and he know knows the person tolerates it.

This fascinates me. Some people seriously take stimulants at night to fall asleep, others in the morning to wake up..!

Recently I heard the story about how stimulants came to be used to treat ADHD and one thing that stood out except that this was an extremely suprising effect was the very simplified explanation that stimulants seems to stimulate the inhibitory parts of the brain most which seems to account for the increased self control.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#136
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

If caffeine was both illegal and as in demand as cocaine vs supply then people would indeed kill for it.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#137
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

> People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks?

If people could buy cocaine at Starbucks (or get cheap stuff at a dollar store), would supply be such a problem for users that they resort to crime?

If caffeine were banned tomorrow and prices rose a thousand-fold, to what lengths would millions of addicts go to postpone the dreaded headache, constipation and lethargy for another day?

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#138
post #49

What's remarkable to me is that modafinil is less toxic than caffeine[0], and possibly even less addictive[1], but we all know which is illegal for recreational use and which is coffee. Regulations are sticky. The FDA follows the precautionary principle. Political game theory incentivizes restricting what the electorate can do rather than giving them more freedoms, and being blamed for whatever harm may fall upon the…

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

I highly doubt this is true. It sure sounds "truthy", though doesn't it?

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#139
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

[deleted]

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#140
post #49

What's remarkable to me is that modafinil is less toxic than caffeine[0], and possibly even less addictive[1], but we all know which is illegal for recreational use and which is coffee. Regulations are sticky. The FDA follows the precautionary principle. Political game theory incentivizes restricting what the electorate can do rather than giving them more freedoms, and being blamed for whatever harm may fall upon the…

Coffee is not just caffeine. How are people so ignorant about that?
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