ADHD and Stimulants: Medication Fears, Debunked
www.additudemag.com
ADHD and stimulants stir up medication fears about the safety of rigorously studied treatment. Why?

[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

  • TankieTanuki [he/him]
    ·
    4 hours ago

    Amphetamines are easier to synthesize than coffee is to brew? Really?

    I suppose you mean once you have the precursors?

    • SubstantialNothingness [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 hours ago

      Hah great question.

      I guess it honestly depends on what you have available to you. The reason why I phrased it this way is because:

        1. If coffee is not available then you aren't working with an intermediate stage. So you're going to be growing, harvesting, roasting, and brewing the bean yourself.
        1. If amphetamines are not available then reactants are still going to be widely available for the average individual who might be reading this. So you're going to be making a trip to the store and then you're going to shake 'n bake and you're done.

      If you need to produce the lye, etc. yourself then you are right that coffee is easier (depending on your region I guess). But this was not the situation in most countries that developed a taste for speed.

      Maybe I should add to my original comment that there are similar drugs with an effect between those of coffee and amphetamines, for example khat. While khat consumption has a long and storied history it is also more euphoric than coffee (khat releases dopamine directly while caffeine acts on adenosine and has a lesser downstream effect on dopamine) and it has been increasingly banned with the evolution of the modern nation-state.

      • SubstantialNothingness [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 hours ago

        Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Thanks for interpreting my disorganized thoughts.

        Also, great username.

        e: Your money is on 2028? Can't say I'd bet against you.

        • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          3 hours ago

          If you’re talking about my bio, it’s just a reference to Bo Burnham’s Inside. But because it came out in 2021 I changed the number lol

          • SubstantialNothingness [comrade/them]
            ·
            3 hours ago

            I was, yeah. I should have caught that. I have a friend that was obsessed with Inside for a while. I guess I had the same reaction to your profile as I did to first hearing his song - this is just common conversation set to upbeat music, right? (I'm a climate change doomer if you couldn't tell.) He's super catchy - I ended up singing along, too.