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Comment by rjbwork | Hacker News Reader

I took amphetamines for a decade. Adderall. Just legalize, give people a clean and pure supply. Then the only side effects are due to the drug not all the issues around it like the low quality chemical ridden bullshit street quality bathtub stuff.

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Um, that extra methyl group makes a huge difference in Adderall versus meth.

Specifically, that methyl group is what allows it to cross the blood-brain barrier. That's exactly as big a deal as it sounds like

Adderall is absolutely not meth, and pretending otherwise is dangerous.

I would argue it's more dangerous to pretend they are so different. It leads many prescription users to believe what they are taking is a safe and harmless concentration aid, while the media paints meth users as monsters under the spell of a scourge on society. In reality, the drugs are not so different. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, regular users showed similar effects and very little preference [0]. Specifically

> methamphetamine and d-amphetamine produced similar effects on the majority of physiological and behavioral measures. Both drugs enhanced ratings of euphoria and mood, increased cardiovascular activity, and improved psychomotor performance. Methamphetamine did, however, engender greater effects on some measures (e.g., heart rate and ratings of ‘high’).

and

> methamphetamine and d-amphetamine (50 mg/70 kg) similarly increased drug self-administration; regardless of amphetamine, participants chose approximately 47–50% drug. This is consistent with results from the preclinical literature indicating that rats and rhesus monkeys self-administer both amphetamines at equivalent rates

Furthermore, your science is not quite correct. Amphetamines are a synthetic derivative of phenylethylamine (found in chocolate, cheese, and wine) that adds a methyl group, which allows it to persist in the bloodstream and therefore cross the blood-brain barrier. Methamphetamine adds another methyl group [1][2], which allows it to survive in the blood longer, cross the BBB more easily, and also makes it significantly more neurotoxic [3] because it even harder for the body to break down. Are there differences? Yes. Are they significant? As someone that has experimented with both substances, I found them far more similar than the media would have you believe.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3475187/

[1] https://methoide.fcm.arizona.edu/infocenter/index.cfm?stid=1...

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229653571_Speed_Ecs...

[3] https://www.quora.com/What-role-does-the-methyl-group-in-met...

> I found them far more similar than the media would have you believe.

For what I know, methamphetamine causes negative long term effects whereas regular misc amphetamines (generic adderall) don’t if you aren’t overdosing or abusing it.

Dextro-amphetamine, the main ingredient in Adderall (75% Dextro-amphetamine, 25% Levo-amphetamine), does in fact cross the BBB.

> that methyl group is what allows it to cross the blood-brain barrier

Wait, Adderall doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier? Then how does it work?

People with ADHD are expected to take those drugs for life. If that's doable then I really don't understand why it's criminalized so heavily.

My understanding is that prescription level doesn't even come close to the experience of a meth high due to much lower equivalent dosage.

They are dangerous drugs with serious side effects like cardiac damage. There’s a book called Blitzed that talks about the mass abuse of amphetamines in WW2 Germany.

The argument is not that the drugs have no side effects or that there are not serious side effects. It is that black market drugs come with all of those side effects plus many more negative effects due to the lack of quality control and unreliable supply chains.

I think the argument works for marijuana, and but not for these other drugs. Getting a script for meth or heroin isn’t a good idea.

Decriminalization to allow people to get help may be a way to help address some of the issues.

But getting a "script" for adderal or oxycontin is totally different, right?

It was called Pervitin, and found in every soldiers lunch box. Everyone could buy it in his local pharmacy. The germans even won their first soccer world cup on it. Bad stuff.

Most drugs can have serious side effects. Alcohol, caffeine etc. Paul Erdos liked his amphetamines too. I can't exactly argue that we're worse off for it as a society.

Churchill was one of them

I'm strongly in favour of legalising all drugs.

It's sub-optimal to compare an adderal prescription to street meth -- they're taken for entirely different reasons and they have entirely different effects.

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