It's funny because the way it's been normalized to a degree for neurotypicals — i.e. neurotypicals taking it as a fun party drug like you mentioned — increases the stigma for people who actually need it to function. The perception is that I'm partying or tweaking every day, at work, whatever, when the reality is that I literally will forget to eat lunch if I'm not on my medication
Amphetamines, pharmaceutical or otherwise, have been used long before they were prescribed for ADHD related diagnoses, though. For fun, work and war. Their use was curtailed generally because of the heavy societal downsides of wide use.
I'm not commenting on your diagnosis, but on the current normalization of amphetamine use again. Opiods were over prescribed. It's not a stretch to say the same about amphetamines imo.
Even if they're over prescribed, what happens to someone who doesn't "need" it who has a script for it? They don't overdose, there's not much in the way of withdrawal at therapeutic doses, and it's significantly less addictive than opioids. You take it before work, your workday is a little more fun instead of excruciating. There can be some long-term health effects but nothing worse than the effects of alcohol use.
As we've seen with the war on drugs, all moralizing about drug use serves to "other" drug users — practically all of whom use drugs as a response to their material conditions — and this stigma ultimately leads to criminalization, which only serves to worsen the material conditions of drug users in a vicious cycle. If people wanna take the drugs I use for medicine just because they're fun, I fully support them — legalize everything tbh.
It's funny because the way it's been normalized to a degree for neurotypicals — i.e. neurotypicals taking it as a fun party drug like you mentioned — increases the stigma for people who actually need it to function. The perception is that I'm partying or tweaking every day, at work, whatever, when the reality is that I literally will forget to eat lunch if I'm not on my medication
Amphetamines, pharmaceutical or otherwise, have been used long before they were prescribed for ADHD related diagnoses, though. For fun, work and war. Their use was curtailed generally because of the heavy societal downsides of wide use.
I'm not commenting on your diagnosis, but on the current normalization of amphetamine use again. Opiods were over prescribed. It's not a stretch to say the same about amphetamines imo.
Even if they're over prescribed, what happens to someone who doesn't "need" it who has a script for it? They don't overdose, there's not much in the way of withdrawal at therapeutic doses, and it's significantly less addictive than opioids. You take it before work, your workday is a little more fun instead of excruciating. There can be some long-term health effects but nothing worse than the effects of alcohol use.
As we've seen with the war on drugs, all moralizing about drug use serves to "other" drug users — practically all of whom use drugs as a response to their material conditions — and this stigma ultimately leads to criminalization, which only serves to worsen the material conditions of drug users in a vicious cycle. If people wanna take the drugs I use for medicine just because they're fun, I fully support them — legalize everything tbh.