Not trying to toot my own horn here but I've been saying for quite some time that one of the big problems with stimulants frankly is that they work. Amphetamines were called "math pills" way back in the forties. This really isn't a new phenomenon. I've been calling stimulants "brain steroids" for awhile now. Why do we think ADHD is such a popular diagnosis? The treatment really gives kids an edge for awhile anyway. (Not that I'm trying to say some kids don't have a neurological difference either.) I'm not sure I think people should have the freedom to choose to use these drugs frankly simply because the extent of the potential for harm really isn't understood and therefore getting truly informed consent is dicey. No one is properly studying the long term effects.

So I'm on the last few pages of Peter Breggin's very interesting and well documented book Brain-Disabling Psychiatric Treatments and in his conclusion he mentions something I knew but had slipped off the radar screen recently. Freud was a strong advocate for the use of cocaine as a miracle drug. Yes, the father of psychoanalysis used cocaine and encouraged friends, family and patients to do the same, for exactly the reasons you are mentioning here. Ritalin and cocaine have a lot of properties in common so this really is a replay of history. When will we ever learn?

Well, the use of these brain stimulants could be problematic if the person who is taking them is going to become psychotic on them and kill or injure someone else.

I only know of one case where somebody killed a person while on Adderall and that was a case which was posted on the attorney, Andy Vickery's Website.

When you count the over 600 murders and over 200 murder-suicides and close to another 500 homicidal attempts for SSRIs & SNRI's that are posted on www.SSRIstories.com, then you get into another realm.

Drs. Preda & Bowers warned about this in their article: Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2001: 62: 30-33 titled: Antidepressant-Associated Mania and Psychosis Resulting in Psychiatric Admissions by Adrian Preda, M.D.; Rebecca W. MacLean, M.D.; Carolyn M. Mazure, Ph.D.; and Malcolm B. Bowers, Jr., M.D.

According to Preda & Bowers, there are over 200,000 [yes, two hundred thousand] people a year being admitted to hospitals due to mania and psychosis induced by the antidepressants. And we have to look at these 200,000 as the benign cases since, hopefully, they were straigtened out. It is the remaining people, who didn't know they were going insane on their antidepressants, who we have to consider. If these people continue to shoot up our schools and are responsible for the tremendous increase in murder-suicides, then law enforcement needs to get involved here.

Otherwise, I would say "live and let live".

Well, I abused Ritalin and Adderal. I used 1,000mg of Ritalin a day for years. Just got out of Prison for Prescription Fraud trying to obtain mroe of it. No, I am not exxagerating how much I used. Yes, a gram a day. When I stopped taking it, it was like having narcolepsy. I couldn't stay awake. I slept for days. Now, I am on parole. When I went to prison, people couldn't believe that Ritalin was the reason I was there.

I have never used Ritalin or Adderal or any other prescription drug to stay awake. But I have used Ephedrine and lots of caffeine and even though I would probably tell anyone that knows me that all they did was wake me up, the reality was that whether it was ephedrine or caffeine or both, I would always get extremely crabby. Road rage crabby. Unreasonable. Very angry over stupid stuff. As I'm usually a pretty laid-back person, that was kind of alarming. Since I made the realization, I've almost completely stopped those. I do use a caffeine pill once in a great while, as I work nights and sometimes things happen with my family during the day that make it necessary for me to go without sleep....but for the most part, I think it's better to avoid things like that.

Ritalin can become addictive for some people. In fact, Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of "Prozac Nation", wrote another book titled: "More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction". What she was addicted to was ritalin and she used it in a most peculiar way. She crushed the ritalin tablets and snorted them.

Even in her book "Prozac Nation", she only made two suicide attempts and they both happened right after she started the Prozac. Of course, she became rather speeded up on the Prozac, too, so she was prescribed the ritalin for her ADHD symptoms [which she had none of before the Prozac]. Where has common sense gone - it is my refrain.

Actually, quite a few authors who sing the glories of Prozac really had bad reactions to them but they didn't realize this. For instance, Lauren Slater in her book "Prozac Diary" told the story of when she first started Prozac that she felt the need to engage in risky behavior. For instance, one night she went to a carnival and walked into a woods with a carnival worker she had just met. Fortunately, she was not injured but that is pretty darn risky.

In her later books, of course, she has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder [as they all are] and is busy monitoring her lithium, antipsychotics, etc. Still, the only complaint she had about Prozac was that it made her lose her libido. Lack of common sense, in my opinion.

Vitamins for health and stamina, organic food and exercising for athletics. What is the difference? I have to take a bunch of meds just to function at all. This takes time and effort, which means I have less for the regular stuff I have to do.
I feel no guilt in taking things which give me an advantage to make up for that time. How can I refuse others that advantage?
I wear glasses, the prescription, is not the standard for my eye exam results. The varilux part is enhanced, the bifocal prescription is stronger as I read a lot and work on small objects. It is stronger than the exam results support.
Is that bad?
We let people drink coffee, yet it does not help mental function, or physical precision, ie hand movements. Speed, Adderal is two analogues of it, does do these things. People are not starting to take nootropics, they are starting to get effective ones. If the person has undiagnosed mental or physical problems which a particular drug aggravates they will find out they have them. My generation read up on anything they took, it was part of our culture, you did not trust the government's drug info, and you did not trust the advocates, and we knew nothing is safe and people react differently.
Educate people to access information. The biggest problem seems to be scientific illiteracy.

da6's comment, is the most educated comment I've ever read

"da6's comment, is the most educated comment I've ever read"
Not only that, but it gives me some specific suggestions to take to my eye guy. I'm sick of being told my glasses are correct when I can't read or see well.

As a kid I was on almost all of the CNS stimulant drugs. Now I use Dexedrine recreationally to get high. Dexedrine provides a euphoria when you use it. Dexedrine's euphoria is the ebst, but the crash is intense. Back when I was an adolescent, the combination of Dexedrine and Cylert made me really crazy and changed my personality, but if you know what they do now, Dexedrine is great to get high on and use recreationally. The ADD stimulants got me in a lot of trouble as a pre-teen and young teen and totally altered my entire personality, but if you're using them for fun, they're awesome.