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Comment by dncornholio | Hacker News Reader

> Before the pandemic, America was already gobbling up 83.1 percent of the global supply. But in December 2020, prescriptions for Adderall skyrocketed.

So it was high before, but now even became higher? Something tells me when 1 country accounts for more than 80%, there is already something going very, very wrong. This has nothing to do with ADHD, this is a culture problem.

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Is it wrong? I don't think anyone is up in arms over coffee and cigarettes, and my personal experience is that Adderall is just caffeine without so many side-effects.

Incidentally, coffee and cigarettes is how I managed before getting a prescription.

It's amphetamines.. It's doing way more to your body than some caffeine

I can spot someone on adderal from miles, it's not much different from people on speed.

> I can spot someone on adderal from miles

That sounds like quite the superpower. How exactly can you tell?

In university I ran into a lot of people who did this stuff to get grades. Many straight up acted like tweakers. Super fast speech, tiny pupils, twitchy, sweaty, etc. I didn't realize it was so popular until like 30% of my classmates would be like this during exams.

Exactly, I can spot it immediately in the way they talk. You have to experienced it yourself before you be able to notice it with others. After I had a night full of amphetamines, the world opened up

On Adderall I'm calm and less impulsive. Off Adderall you'd think I was on Adderall.

Amphetamines don't effect people with ADHD the same way as it effects people without ADHD.

By improving the executive function of an ADHD person, it helps them be less impulsive and can definitely help sort out any comorbid anxiety they experience.

What I'm saying is if this is your experience on Adderall and you don't have an ADHD diagnosis, you may be self medicating without realizing it.

I was diagnosed when I was 2.

Can you explain what, exactly, its doing in contrast to caffeine? If you have citations I would love to read more.

Or just observe? Talk to someone who had a coffee, then talk to someone who had amphetamines. You will know.

Tons of false negative bias here: you can spot some people on speed but you are unaware of how many people who are on speed but you can't spot.

This number doesn't seem to account for other countries (e.g. most of Europe) prescribing similar enough drugs - e.g. Ritalin for the same reason much more than Adderall.

I think this has a lot more to do with the FDA, drug patents, and the pharmaceutical industry optimizing for profit.

America has had a stimulant drug friendly culture for the last hundred years. Benzedrine from the 1930s to the late 1960s. Cocaine in the 70s and 80s. Ritalin, Dexedrine, Adderall, and clandestinely produced methamphetamine from the 1990s to now. Caffeine and nicotine.

America runs on stimulants.

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