“New life for the living… Dexedrine’s uniquely ‘smooth’ antidepressant effect restores mental altertness and optimism, induces feeling of energy and well-being… Dexedrine has the happy effect of bringing back life for the living.” (1950)
Fast forward a few decades, past DEA scheduling the substance & seeing people develop problems all over. Some estimates say up to 35% of college students are using “diverted” ADHD medication, frequently including Adderall & other prescribed iterations of Dextroamphetamine. The College Life study said 62% of college students were offered some form of Dextroamphetamine (or its weaker cousin, Methylphenidate, aka Ritalin) with half opting to use it at least once. When you think back to Doc Ellis retelling his story of how all of the other players were on amphetamines while he was on LSD, Burning Man production gets thrown into sharp relief. There’s a very interesting harmony that exists at Burning Man, where you can clearly tell who is in “productivity” mode & who is in “don’t give that fucking guy a wrench” mode. What jobs are we better at while intoxicated on psychedelics vs. what jobs are we better at while intoxicated on psychomotor stimulants? A lot popular culture gets at perhaps what those are exactly, but there’s all this pretense & bullshit that maintains that no one is on anything.
Kind of like when Elvis met Nixon in the White House. Not only did the King himself get named a DEA Narcotics agent, but he managed to earn the badge while high on Dexedrine and a pharmacopoeia of other drugs. There are dozens of other famous people I could use to describe the problems associated with Dexedrine, you can read the Nixest review here. Two examples of note are Pete Townshend, who stated that Dexedrine doesn’t make you wise or poetic in an interview with Rolling Stone & Charles Whitman, the famed “Clock Tower Killer,” who had been prescribed the drug before he went on his notorious killing spree. Even the famed Joan Didon ended up relying on Dexedrine, so let’s never think that the greatest among us can’t fall victim to it. It ended up damaging her relationship with her daughter dearly.
She balanced ill health and short deadlines by drinking gin and hot water to blunt the pain and taking Dexedrine to blunt the gin, which makes for some ravishing reading, but is hardly a prescription for attentive parenting.
Student X is ‘normal’.
Student Y is diagnosed with ADHD.
On his own, X achieves a 3.2 GPA.
On his own, Y is only capable of achieving a 2.5 GPA, clearly less than X.
However, since he is prescribed to Adderall, Y is able to achieve a 3.5 GPA.
If X had access to Adderall, he could have achieved a 3.8 GPA
It is clear that Y ultimately out-performs X because of the Adderall boost.
~Populi Magazine, Joseph Maxwell
Is this cheating? Do we care? Are we all good with dosing our laborers (electronic or physical) with stimulants just to get the job done? Let us know what you think in the comments & join Ravelrie, Stay Safe Seattle & NY DanceSafe on Twitter using #SpeedFF at 1:30p PST to argue about it!