[N]o other class of medications in virtually all of medicine inspires more baseless fears, intentional disinformation, and wild beliefs as do the stimulants used to treat ADHD.

Interestingly, these fears are almost entirely an American phenomenon that hardly exists elsewhere in the world.

[H]aving ADHD lowers a person’s estimated life expectancy by 12.7 years.


From other articles on the site:
  • ADHD medication use lowers risk of death by 19%, risk of overdose by 50%, and it reduces hospitalizations

  • [T]he risk of substance abuse decreases substantially when [ADHD] patients are treated with stimulant medication

  • SubstantialNothingness [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 hours ago

    There’s an interesting and easy read on amphetamines used in Nazi Germany titled Blitzed by Norman Ohler.

    Blitzed is a great reference, it was one of the sources that opened my eyes to the bigger picture iirc

    Fun fact: doctors in the US still occasionally prescribe methamphetamine for ADHD. It goes by the trademark name Desoxyn.

    Because it works lol. I’ve never tried it but it’s clear why it does: One of it’s two metabolites is amphetamine itself. At best you get additional therapeutic effect from the original form and the additional isomer, at worst (since the additional metabolite is not extremely toxic) you just have a prodrug for amphetamine.

    For those whom it might benefit, a prodrug is a drug which does not have the targeted action but whose metabolite is the active chemical itself - these are sometimes used to bypass drug laws but they have other purposes too.

    afaik there are two primary reasons why meth is seen so much worse than amphetamines even though they are both generally legal prescriptions where either is legal:

      1. Meth is what was common so meth was the focus of propaganda and other communications, and
      1. The big one imo: Meth is much, much easier to synth.

    And so meth is relegated to a last-resort therapy in most cases.

    There may be additional factors I’m missing here that aren’t described in the research that I’ve done. There haven’t ever been too many meth users in my social circles and science can often gloss over individual experiences. I don’t mean to say meth is great or even that it’s not bad for most people. I don’t really know. I just know that a lot of the discussion around it is severely distorted which has created some undue prejudices when it is a legitimate therapeutic compound for an illness that plagues significant numbers of the population in Western-styled developed countries where ADHD traits can be strongly discriminated against.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      6 hours ago

      I think methamphetamine is less neurotoxic than amphetamine at the equivalent dosage, although that’s only what I heard - never looked into it to say that I know this for a fact.

      Did you know that Ohler has a new book out called Tripped about psychedelics? It’s also up on TankieTube as an audiobook here although I haven’t read it yet but based on Blitzed I’d assume it’s pretty good.

      • SubstantialNothingness [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        5 hours ago

        I think methamphetamine is less neurotoxic than amphetamine at the equivalent dosage, although that’s only what I heard - never looked into it to say that I know this for a fact.

        I can see how that could be the case. It’s prodrug action through amphetamine is always going to be lesser on a per gram basis.

        Did you know that Ohler has a new book out called Tripped about psychedelics?

        Yes but I didn’t know we have it on TankieTube! Maybe I’ll listen to it this weekend. Psychedelics are very interesting to me.