• BedbugCutlefish@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I mean, Methamphetamine is extremely similar, pharmacologically, with Adderall. Desoxyn is the ‘medicine brand name’ for meth, to treat ADHD.

    Biggest difference between Crystal Meth, the street drug, and Desoxyn, the medicine, is dosage. A Desoxyn tablet is about 100x less methamphetamine than you’d take to ‘get high’. (not to mention, pills have a slower release than smoking it).

    And yeah, there are other differences between Adderall and Meth; for the most part, Adderall is safer, less addictive, and less ‘makes you high’. So there’s very few people still using Desoxyn, but it is still out there. For reasons that aren’t really understood, Methamphetamine does work to treat a few people’s ADHD for whom Adderall doesn’t do much.

    (and, for that matter, there are a pretty huge array of different amphetamines to treat ADHD and similar things, that are all subtly different in not very well understood ways, made messier by the fact that pharmaceutical companies making sure to push out a new drug, that might just be a new mix of existing drugs, every 10 years, for patent reasons. But Desoxyn is basically a ‘last resort’ to throw at the wall, if the patient hasn’t responded well to any of the others.)

    • evranch
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      1 year ago

      I feel like the biggest difference by far is that most amphetamines are prescribed in XR formulations these days. The feeling caused by a slow trickle of product from a laser-drilled capsule or time-release beads over 8-12 hours is incomparable to the rush of smoking or snorting powdered amphetamine. For a lot of drugs the biggest addiction driver is actually the rise rate which causes the “hit”. i.e. compare addictive cigarettes with nearly harmless pipe.

      That’s why when people abuse Adderall they usually crush it up and toot it, and they aren’t railing 100 tablets at a go.

      Myself I have taken Adderall and now take Dexadrine (it’s cheaper) and have never felt any addictive pull from either. When I go camping I always take a multi-day break and never feel any ill effects other than a desire to chase squirrels and bother strangers with excessive chat.

      I always bring some with me though so I can take one on the last day and effectively pack up my campsite without leaving anything behind, lol

    • MystikIncarnate
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      1 year ago

      I’m just putting this out there, that, cocaine also helps treat ADHD.

      It’s not used in clinical treatments, but it has been observed that while neurotypical brains exposed to cocaine get an unfocused energy increase, ADHD brains tend to get a higher level of focus with that energy increase.

      Theoretically it’s possible for someone to treat their own ADHD using cocaine.

      … It’s a really bad idea, but it’s possible.

      • Pokethat@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I mean, original coca cola, or even chewing coca leaves like South Americans could probably do the trick.