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Comment by risedotmoe | Hacker News Reader

Trouble staying awake? Try meth!

Please don’t recommend people develop expensive habits to dangerous addictive chemicals.

- Funny you should bring it up, meth is actually a rarely prescribed but very effective adhd medication. There are genuinely doctors and patients deciding that meth is preferable to untreated adhd. I didn’t recommend it because my experience with countries lacking adhd meds is they’re strict on drugs with harsh drug laws, which now that I’m thinking more about it isn’t necessarily OPs situation. OP if nicotine doesn’t do it for you and you’re not risking life in prison, maybe look in to meth. If it works out you’ve got risedotmoe to thank.

- Your analogy does nothing but trivialise adhd. Replace trouble staying awake with horrid sleeping disorder, put someone in OPs shoes where other medications aren’t available, and somehow meth can help? That person should absolutely do meth.

- Would be interested to see this info that’s convinced you that nicotine is so terrible that I’m “plain malicious” to recommend someone look in to it.

- the non nicotine and non meth ADHD medication that would be prescribed by OPs psychiatrist if it was an option in their country is addictive. Amphetamines are addictive. ADHD can make it near impossible to function in modern society. You can have some pretty severe down downsides to treatment before it isn’t worth it. If there was an effective downsideless treatment then that’s what we’d be using in countries with options. There isn’t so we make do.

- Expensive?

- Just to be clear, ADHD in the modern deep work rewarding economy is like missing a foot back when everyone was a subsistence farmer. Hell just basic existence things like keeping your car rego in date is rough. If god appeared and was all "I feel like being a dick today. I'm going to wave my wand and you either lose a foot or adhd meds never work for you again" I'd choose to lose the foot. I think most people who have experienced treated and untreated ADHD would. If OP posted saying "hey guys im going to lose my foot unless I do nicotine (or meth) what should I do?" would you call people saying to take the nicotine malicious?

Is meth ever safe? I think Carheart says it’s one of those drugs that can’t be refined enough to be safe at any dose/use.

We're just problem solving here - the moral assessment of any given solution is each individual's choice to make, pal.

This mindset is awful. You don’t fix a problem by creating 5 more. This mindset creates bad code, kills people, and rots the planet.

I really can’t wrap my mind around someone suggesting a drug addiction (that leads to cancer) to remedy a mental disorder. It’s just plain malicious.

If somebody is opening their mind to help, you have a responsibility as someone of greater knowledge to steer them in the right direction, not take advantage of them.

Here's something that might be interesting to you: you can consume nicotine without smoking cigarettes or even inhalation, and in that context, the harms of nicotine are negligible.

Check out this cool write-up: https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

That's the article I'd come across in the past that made me think of it as a possible adhd med.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that Gwern is evaluating it for much more minimal use than you would try to treat adhd with. Iirc he was using it to try to build an exercise habit. So the addiction risks are going to be much higher than what he portrays them as.

Still better than untreated adhd though.

Of course a measured amount of daily meth will probably save this person’s sanity but because we live in the world we do nobody can recommend it without fear. Fuck the authorities and just buy the medicine you need

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