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Comment by drivebyacct2 | Hacker News Reader

I love the comments here. Screw the fact that it's a stimulant drug, it's "just caffeine". How many among the caffiene abusing crowd also go out of their way to demonize other, possibly less legal, drugs with similar or safer effects? Even ones with considerably lower lethal doses.

"How to Break Your Daily Meth Habit And Use Meth Strategically". (edit, I'm not saying meth is an example of a drug "safer" than caffeine), but seriously, meth is used like coffee in many other parts of the world, especially those in migrant jobs or need to maximize their hours when a job is available. (I'm not, for the record, advocating that anyone even so much as try meth).

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Are you sure you don't mean some other kind of amphetamine? Methamphetamine is really addictive and toxic.

I'd imagine it's used by migrant/long-hours workers because it's relatively cheap (for the given effect), and quite readily available.

It's even licenced by the FDA for certain conditions such as ADHD, and exogenous obesity[1].

I believe (although I can't find a direct citation to justify it at the moment) that it's considered to be more damaging than other amphetamines (both psychologically "meth psychosis", and physically (cardiovascular stress).

There are a number of drugs with similar(ish) properties, although some of them are either illegal, or prescription only. Off the top of my head, there's Provigil (modafinil)[2], Khat (cathinone)[3], Coca leaves[4], and the various other non-caffeine forms of the xanthines (Yerba mate, Cocoa)[5].

In addition to those, there's the whole class of the stimulant Phenethylamines, (of which the * -amphetamines are a subset) although some of them have hallucinogenic effects which would limit their use as a performance enhancer.

The only one I would outright demonise is Methamphetamine, not necessarily purely due to the potential side effects, but due to the relative ease of (very poor quality) manufacture. This leads to a whole bunch of really nasty reaction side-products, on top of whatever cutting agents the distribution chain has added to maximise profits.

In any of these discussions, it's considered traditional to present Paul Erdős[6] as an example of productive amphetamine usage, so I will :)

On the topic of therapeutic index (therapeutic dose / ld50 dose), caffeine is probably one of the highest in my list above, with an LD50 of ~150mg/kg over a short period of time, and a productive dose being of the order of 100-1000mg/day depending on tolerance. Discounting time, that's a ratio of ~1/10.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Methamphetami...

[2] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Modafinil

[3] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Khat

[4] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Coca#Traditio...

[5] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Xanthine

[6] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%9...

Really? Meth is similar or safer in it's effects?

A lot of IT people I have known over the years have had Meth habits of one sort or another. A few have had it turn into a full blown problem while others just stopped without it becoming an issue. All of them have talked to me about what a slippery slope it is. I don't think any of them would never suggest caffeine is anywhere near as dangerous.

No. Sorry, I should have been more clear. There are other drugs often demonized that have much less stressful effects than caffeine on the body and have lower lethal doses. While there is a lot of scare-mongering about meth as well, obviously meth is not an example of one of those drugs. I apologize that I didn't make that distinction clearer.

Yeah, fair enough. Caffeine does tend to get off relatively easily, although I would argue there is good reason for that, when you compare it to alcohol and nicotine for instance...

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