[supersour]

Something I'm curious about: why do you think that an excess of stimulants is societally damaging? For the past few years I'm of the opinion that these substances should be available to those who find them useful (maybe with a doctor check-in required for blood pressure and dosage regulation).

While the abuse potential for adderall has a stronger case, something like methylphenidate has a relatively low abuse potential and has been shown to be neuroprotective (unlike adderall which may be damaging long term). Requiring people to go through a semi-permeable ADHD screening and visit a doctor every 3 months for refills is unnecessary load on an already overburdened health care system (I'm in Canada).

Why are caffeine pills ubiquitous and accepted as a means to improve productivity, yet other stimulants are not? In my mind, this parallels the argument as to how alcohol is given a pass compared to other recreational drugs since it is already culturally accepted.

[EdwardDiego]

> why do you think that an excess of stimulants is societally damaging?

Because of their potential for addiction, and also we know that excessive usage of stimulants can have bad physical and psychological impacts.

You compared caffeine, well, that's not really comparable to stronger stimulants. Unless someone has committed murder five days into a No-Doze bender that I'm unaware of.

[supersour]

True, I suppose there are the "extreme" users of amphetamines which I haven't considered. Though I wonder if those who take megadoses of adderall are the same people who already are willing to consume methamphetamine or other street stims.

This isn't the same person as the student or office worker who prefers taking low dose methylphenidate to their usual two cups of coffee. If the drug was obtained illegally, many consider this to be misuse or abuse of the drug, and this is the caffeine/ADHD med cultural discrepancy I was pointing out.

So I suppose it is fair to ask: with the availably of black market stimulants, to what extent does restricting ADHD medication availability cut down on stimulant abuse?