Dexies

[supergee]

60 years ago, one of the scary drugs that dope fiends abused was dexies, dextroamphetamine. Today we have Adderall, a medicine that doctors frequently prescribe for children and others with behavioral issues. That is also dextroamphetamine. Dr. Scott Alexander discusses.

Thanx to Slate Star Codex

Comments

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Kinda makes you wonder how many of the original "dope fiends" were self-medicating. The establishment is never happy unless it gets its cut.

[johnpalmer]

Back in the days I hung out in alt.support.attn_deficit, we'd had crazies saying ADHD meds taught kids to grab a pill for happiness. There were also links showing that kids using medication with regular monitoring were far less likely to use drugs illegally. (So, to no one's surprise, the nay-screamers were wrong.)

I also found it fascinating that Paul Erdős used amphetamines constantly. Once, on a bet, he gave them up for a month. He immediately restarted after winning the bet, and angrily told the other bettor that he'd deprived mathematics for a month by making it. He also presented with... strangeness. ADHD wouldn't be a surprising diagnosis. He was always given a minder - someone to make sure he went to meals, meetings, etc., and one day nearly caused a traffic accident because he suddenly took an interest in driving, and asked, at every corner, "is this where we're supposed to turn?" The poor driver couldn't break free of the standard reaction to that question - but near as I can tell, he wasn't suggesting a turn, just trying to figure out how they knew when.

I'd have loved to have met him. And I would have hoped I'd find something to do to make his life a bit better, a bit happier, just for a moment; that would have been more meaningful to me than earning an Erdős number of 1.