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Using Adderall In the Office To Get Ahead
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports on the changing usage of psychostimulants like Adderall. They were once only prescribed to help children with attention deficit disorders focus on their school work, but then college students found those drugs could increase their ability to study. Now a growing number of workers use them to help compete. What will happen as these drugs are more widely used in the workplace? According to Anjan Chatterjee, the use of neurotechnologies to enhance healthy people's brain function could easily become widespread. "If anything, we worship workplace productivity by any means. Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world. Why not add drugs to energize, focus and limit that annoying waste of time — sleep?" Julian Savulescu says that what defines human beings is their extraordinary cognitive power and their ability to enhance that power through reading, writing, computing and now smart drugs. "Eighty-five percent of Americans use caffeine. Nicotine and sugar are also cognitive enhancers," says Savulescu.
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah says regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of "normal" productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters' advantage is only fleeting)."
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah says regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of "normal" productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters' advantage is only fleeting)."
Yup until your boss starts making noise why you can't keep up with Danny who is using the drug.
Or when you are passed up on a promotion for a guy that is using the drug.
Or when you notice you are the only one in the office not on the drug, and you get called into the office, and given a shiny pink slip. Oh yeah and everyone in the office realizes that, and they get second thoughts about stopping taking the drug....
It's not just pot or meth. It's true for alcohol as well. The general phenomenon is called state-dependent memory, and it's been established science for many decades -- the Wikipedia article cites a text from 1835.
This drug is two amphetamine salts mixed together. The amphetamine users I knew had very adverse side effects (especially the dead one); how could this possibly become legal?
Looks like someone rediscovered Dan Hurley's book. I see they put nicotine on their wishlist, which is pretty stupid
Adderall is a phenethylamine class psychostimulant. It's 75% dextroamphetamine and 25% levoamphetamine.
Otherwise known as "speed". And yes, it's a short term cognitive enhancer, with some pretty negative long term effects. They used to give it to fighter pilots, and now the pilots tend to traffic in it themselves. They call them "go pills".
You are generally much better off taking things like caffeine, ocetam, piracetam, donepezil (aricept) or ergoloid (hydergine). if you absolutely feel the need to boost your IQ score for the duration of the drug, but they tend to have decreasing effects over time, and there's a ramp-down effect when you quit taking them, as your own neurotransmitters recover (if they do). Similar to long term pot use, they can reduce the overall available neurotransmitters naturally present, permanently altering your overall brain chemistry. Usually for the worse, if you aren't taking them as a means of treating an underlying condition.
Obviously, there no accounting for people who are going to try to tweak their brain chemistry anyway.
I do take something similar to Adderal in the workplace, and yes, it gives me an edge over some others. I started taking this because I had a real problem with concentration, by today's standard. That last part, "by today's standard", is the important distinction to make. Let's not kid ourselves here, this ADD/ADHD problem did not appear among humans just recently... What chaged is that we're (man and woman in the house) required to work more and be more officient with everything in all aspects of our lives. It really is no surprise that these medications really do help.
Strangely, I have no moral dilemma about taking this medication. Yes, it does give me an upper hand in the workplace, but that's just a happy coincidence that I happen to enjoy. And you know what? That's not even the best side effect that this medication did for me.... I saw a huge boost to my self confidence since I started taking the meds, and THAT's the best part.
Not to mention that I don't have any side effects.
I know of other colleagues that take these meds and I have to doubts that this is the future of performing drugs in the workplace (and everywhere else).
It's worth mentioning that one reason amphetamine (Adderall) and methylphenidate (Ritalin) are such strong stimulants because they are what's called "impulse independent." They don't just make your neurons work better/fire faster; they actually REVERSE the flow of your reuptake transporter. Your neurotransmitters don't get recycled like normal. So, if you take too high of a dose for too long, you can use up the neurotransmitters faster than your body can replace them. That's why it can take so long to get back to normal.
These ARE powerful stimulants and they shouldn't be abused. There IS addiction potential. There ARE downsides to them. This whole trend of overuse/reliance on pharmaceuticals is just bonkers to me. I don't get it. I really don't.
Sapho juice was in the original Dune:
"Paul looked at his father, back to Hawat, suddenly conscious of the Mentat's great age, aware that the old man had served three generations of Atreides. Aged. It showed in the rheumy shine of the brown eyes, in the cheeks cracked and burned by exotic weathers, in the rounded curve of the shoulders and the thin set of his lips with the cranberry-colored stain of sapho juice."
"SAPHO: high-energy liquid extracted from barrier roots of Ecaz. Commonly used by Mentats who claim it amplifies mental powers. Users develop deep ruby stains on mouth and lips."
In the industry I work the unions have enforced contracts to prevent the abuse you are talking about (Germany).
38-hour weeks are an exception here with 35 being the norm. We are basically forbidden to work more than 10 hours a day. It is not forbidden per se, but the law states that you cannot operate a vehicle after more than 10 hours of work and the company is therefore required to pay for the taxi home. So it is being frowned upon and if you work longer than 10 hours your superior is in big trouble.
Vacations are mandatory, 30 days per year (6 weeks in US terms) +1 extra day for Christmas. You have to take them, otherwise your superior is in trouble. Same with overtime: if you have too much of it, you have to take some days off. And you're getting paid extra if you take a mandatory vacation.
Many engineers here are not happy with the rules but they also understand why these are in place.
I was offered a job in the USA once with almost double the payment. But after I have calculated missing vacation days, overtime insurance costs, vacation and Christmas bonuses etc. I found out that per-hour payment is better here.
Yet they're both amphetamines. Just like opiates, yes they're not all heroin, but even the most benign of opiates, codeine being the most benign to my knowledge, is still habit forming and comes with a whole slew of risks which is why at least in the US, it isn't used in over the counter medications. For being benign, it's still pretty effing powerful.
The entire class of amphetamine isn't safe for general usage. They used to be used as diet pills and pep pills, you'll notice that they aren't anymore because it tended to cause all sorts of sleep deprivation issues such as paranoid delusions, and since they were all addictive, this caused for some pretty severe issues. Meth is more severe, yes, but to say the same issues don't exist with others is just willful ignorance.
Methylphenedate and adderall (dextroamphetamine) are dangerous: they cause psychosis (well-known). Caffeine causes withdrawal effects, and normalizes (you're not more productive on caffeine after you've become addicted). Phenotropil is the only safe stimulant I've found, but it's easy to build a tolerance--no negative effects, just it stops working. This is a matter of dosing: the normal dose is 100mg multiple times each day, and my analysis of the molecules (molecular weight, number of phenyl groups) tells me 16mg-24mg 1-3 times per day would be more correct for a 150lb adult male. The white elephant in the room is really the response: 100mg of phenotropil produces a noticeable stimulant effect; the normal prescribed doses of Methylphenedate and Dex only produce a cognitive benefit (they treat ADHD without making you hyperactive). People, of course, keep reving the engine until they feel it working, subtle effect be damned.
The same goes for modafinil. Modafinil will effectively let you sleep 8 hours for every 56 awake, no toxicity and no side effects; the new Armodafinil is less safe, but more profitable. Adrafinil metabolizes in the liver into modafinil; this puts strain on the liver, and can cause damage in the long term.
People are popping armodafinil, dex, and other dangerous crap all the damn time. The stuff that's safe has been backed by a few studies, but is either well-studied and scheduled tightly (modafinil--safe, not legal) or studied reasonably-well (i.e. not concrete, so not as certain, but toxicology is at least explored) and OTC legal. This leads to people mostly getting dangerous prescription drugs illegally (Modafinil aside) and abusing them, or getting understood-safe non-prescription drugs legally and having no good guidance on how to use them because their medical application hasn't actually been well-explored.
Of course, you also have the issue of drug interactions, long-term use, and so forth. Phenotropil is known pretty safe, but what are its drug interactions? What kind of effects will you get with high, long-term use, like some people do with 400mg per day doses for years? Will you start to develop psychosis after months or years, like with the other stims? We know it's absolutely safe at 100mg doses for months on end, but we don't know about 500mg doses for weeks or months or years on end; we're not even sure about 20mg doses for years on end. Even assuming drug safety, we don't know if it can chronically treat any condition or provide any benefit.
Then you have stuff like noopept that just jacks up your BNF and BDNF--which is great, but 10 minutes on a bicycle will do that. Not kidding. This is the most powerful cognitive enhancer on the market, and it's equivalent to a short jog.
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