Amphetamines
[back] Toxic Psychiatry 

[3.6 millions US kids on Ritalin, a fancy name for a remix of a street drug.  Most amphetamine street drugs started out as Allopathic medicine, eg Ecstasy and Speed, and Ritalin is a street drug now.]

Amphetamines (alpha-methyl-phenethylamine), also known as speed or crank, is a stimulant, and club drug.  Along with methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, etc.), amphetamine is one of the standard treatments for ADHD. Amphetamines are also a standard treatment for narcolepsy as well as other sleeping disorders. Amphetamines are sometimes used to augment anti-depressant therapy in treatment-resistant depression. Medical use for weight loss is still approved in some countries, but is regarded as obsolete and dangerous in, for example, the United States.

[2008] America's First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929-1971 By Nicolas Rasmussen "By the end of World War II in 1945, less than a decade after amphetamine tablets were introduced to medicine, over half a million civilians were using the drug psychiatrically or for weight loss, and the consumption rate in the United States was greater than 2 tablets per person per year on a total-population (all ages) basis."

Allopathic use
No medical use was found for Amphetamine until the 1920s, when it was introduced in most of the world in the form of the pharmaceutical Benzedrine. This drug was used by the militaries of several nations, especially the air forces, to fight fatigue and increase alertness among servicemen. After decades of reports of abuse, the FDA banned Benzedrine inhalers, and limited amphetamines to prescription use in 1959, but illegal use became common.

MDMA was legal in the United States until May 31, 1985 [2]. Before then, it was used both as an adjunct to psychotherapy and as a recreational drug. MDMA began to be used therapeutically in the mid-1970s after the chemist Alexander Shulgin introduced it to psychotherapist Leo Zeff. As Zeff and others spread word about MDMA, it developed a reputation for enhancing communication, reducing psychological defenses, and increasing capacity for introspection. A small number of therapists–including George Greer, Joseph Downing, and Philip Wolfson–used it in their practices until it was made illegal.

Drug list
 Amphetamine (Adderall)
Atomoxetine (Strattera )
Dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine and Dextrostat)
Laevoamphetamine (Benzedrine)
Methamphetamine (Desoxyn, Methedrine) Street names: crystal, meth, ice, speed, glass, chalk, crank)
Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (Street names Ecstasy, MDMA, E or X )
Methylphenidate (Ritalin)

Quotes
"The amphetamines are potent psychomotor stimulants. Their use causes a release of the excitatory neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenaline (norepinephrine) from storage vesicles in the CNS. Amphetamines may be sniffed, swallowed, snorted or injected. They induce exhilarating feelings of power, strength, energy, self-assertion, focus and enhanced motivation. The need to sleep or eat is diminished. The release of dopamine typically induces a sense of aroused euphoria which may last several hours: unlike cocaine, amphetamine is not readily broken down by the body. Feelings are intensified. The user may feel he can take on the world.
        The euphoria doesn't last. There follows an intense mental depression and fatigue. Amphetamine depletes the neuronal stores of dopamine in the mesolimbic pleasure centres of the brain.
        More than any other illegal drug, speed is associated with violence and anti-social behavior. Occasional light and infrequent use is probably relatively harmless; but heavy chronic use can lead to stereotypies of behavior, depressive disorders, "meth bugs" akin to cocaine-induced formication, strain on the cardiovascular system, increasing behavioral disintegration, and outright "amphetamine psychosis".
    Amphetamine is structurally related to ephedrine, a natural stimulant found in plants of the genus Ephedra. It is also structurally related to adrenaline, the body's "fight or flight" hormone. Amphetamine was first synthesised by Edeleano in Germany in 1887, but it only entered clinical medicine in the late 1920s when its psychostimulant effect was recognised. The US medical and pharmaceutical establishment was worried that supplies of ephedra in faraway China would be exhausted. Amphetamine promised a cheap and synthetic substitute. Like ephedrine, amphetamine dilates the bronchial small sacs of the lungs, a great blessing for sufferers from breathing disorders. So in 1932, Smith, Kline and French introduced the famous Benzedrine Inhaler.
        Amphetamine sulphate was aggressively marketed for asthmatics, hay-fever sufferers and anyone with a cold. Amphetamine was soon available in pill form too. "Pep pills" were sold over the counter for all manner of ailments. Doctors prescribed amphetamine for depression, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, travel-sickness, night-blindness, hyperactive disorders of children, obesity, narcolepsy, impotence, and apathy in old age.
    Soldiers on both sides in World War Two consumed millions of amphetamine tablets. This practice sometimes caused states of quasi-psychotic aggression in the combatants.
        From 1942, Hitler received daily methamphetamine injections from his quack doctor Morell. This corrupted his judgement, undermined his health and probably changed the course of the War." http://amphetamines.com/

" Amphetamines:  These are extremely dangerous drugs. They include dextro-amphetamine, Benzedrine, methamphetamine and amphetamine-like compounds such as Ritalin. In general, in high doses, these drugs cause a "body trip" and cessation of thinking activity. In the early days when Dexedrine was first synthesized by Smith, Kline and French in Philadelphia, I did some psychopharmacologic experiments on myself with it. In doses of 150 mgm. there is a spectacular increase in bodily energy and a spectacular decrease in one's critical faculties in regard to this bodily energy. There is a hedonistic over-valuation of one's own bodily acitivity so that repeating tapeloops of bodily movement, for example, can occur for hours at a time. With amphetamines, tank work can become rather repetitious and simpleminded.
     For three or four days after such a trip, there is total exhaustion of the organism. This state can lead to negative things such as trying to get "back to normal" by taking more of the amphetamines. This drives one further into the exhaustion cycle and finally one becomes quite paranoid, quite frightened, and may "freak out" totally. In an attempt to escape the penalty of such tripping, certain persons have taken to barbiturates to calm down the system after the trip. This leads to a cyclical effect in which one gets so depressed by the barbiturates that one takes amphetamines to come up again; one gets so excited by the amphetamines that one takes the barbiturates to go down again. This cyclical "tapeloop" of two drugs can be extremely dangerous—one can   end   up   dead   in   a   hurry.   We   recommend   that amphetamines not be used in tank research."--John Lilly MD (The Deep Self)