Lisdexamfetamine is profoundly different than other variants of amphetamine in utility and experience. It’s not just a prodrug – it has a rather clever molecular time-release mechanism. It comes in very slowly over a period of two hours, with plasma concentration plateau of two more. This makes a big difference; I experience
no cravings or drug-seeking for more of the drug at any point. It’s also less of a “jolt”; The slow, steady increase in effect is much more conductive to steady yet limber focus. It’s just incredibly functional medicine. Also, the description of a 14-hour effective duration is accurate in my experience.
It’s definitely a relatively new development and a much more humanely effective drug than previous options.
— It is dextroamphetamine, which I’m inclined to believe is the more useful handedness. Levoamphetamine has more “body” effects. To the dextroamphetamine is bound a lysine molecule, and this together is an inactive powder. Enzymes in red blood cells are needed to cleave the lysine off and activate the dextroamphetamine. I’m quite certain that the dopamine rate-of-change detection mechanisms in the central nervous system cause very different behavioral and cognitive pattern cascades when it’s an almost imperceptively slow change, compared to an unhindered uptake of free amphetamine. Compare the difference in addiction potentials between faster and slower routes of administration of, say, nicotine - smoking fast, patches slow.