Using Adderall In the Office To Get Ahead 407
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)."
the lips acquire stains (Score:5, Funny)
the stains become a warning
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So why not drink it through a straw...
Anyway AFAIK the "juice of Saphoo" was only in the film, not in the original book.
Although I haven'y read the Brian Herbert written prequels...
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No, I remember that Thufir drank the stuff, and the red lips were a trademark of the Mentat.
However, in the book, they drank it because they *BELIEVED* it helped (placebo effect). It was never explicitly stated that it did help.
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Although I haven'y read the Brian Herbert written prequels...
Don't, seriously, don't. you'll never forgive yourself. I read one and am still trying to forget. Read some star wars fan fiction or something instead, which will be of similar or higher quality, free, and have the advantage that you won't feel like you're dancing with Brian on his father's grave while burning copies of the original books.
Re:the lips acquire stains (Score:4, Informative)
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."
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Anyway AFAIK the "juice of Saphoo" was only in the film, not in the original book.
The Mentat Mantra [wikipedia.org] was the part that wasn't in the book.
Re:the lips acquire stains (Score:5, Funny)
It is through the Dew of Mountains that thoughts acquire speed.
Where's the how to? (Score:2)
I thought this was going to be a guide.
Laugh (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world.
We shoot each other more often as well.
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Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world.
We shoot each other more often as well.
With the possible exception of Postal workers (sorry, stereotyping) people who work 60-hour weeks and take no vacations are unlikely to be the ones doing the shooting -- they are doing the work of two people, and that other guy, the guy whose job the over-achiever has eliminated, is more likely to one with time to spare to go out murdering.
As productivity increases, companies can get more done with fewer workers. Good for profit margins, not so good for unemployment rates.
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I grabbed some data from Wikipedia for homicide rate [wikipedia.org] and required minimum leave [wikipedia.org] and did a quick and dirty correlation after removing any countries that didn't have both data points.
Without controlling for any other factors there's only a very weak correlation (r = -.205) which would suggest that vacation days don't have much to do with the homicide rate of a country. Note that this doesn't reflect
I don't know what to think (Score:5, Interesting)
I am completely and totally for letting people have the freedom to do whatever drugs they want to. The war on drugs has been a blight on our civilation long enough
That being said, a world where taking things like adderall to compete in the employment world is not only accepted but possibly even expected scares the shit out of me.
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That being said, a world where taking things like adderall to compete in the employment world is not only accepted but possibly even expected scares the shit out of me.
Think Johnny Mnemnonic, if you can keep the image of the movie out of your head. The theme crops up again and again, it was mentioned in Hardwired for example.
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That said, we already live in a world where use of stimulants in the workplace is expected. As the summary points out, 85% of people use caffeine. Personally, I would love to see adderall gain more widespread acceptance as a caffeine alternative. It doesn't make me jittery or hurt my stomach in the way that caffeine does, the on
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the greatest authoritarian government, run by the most fascist, megalomaniacal, sadistic person who has ever lived, would find no better tool of absolute control than mandatory hard drug use like meth, cocaine, or especially heroin
physical bars can be transcended via the mind. but bars in the mind?
i never understood people who, in the name of freedom, support the use of the most freedom destroying methods known to man. anything that causes easy addiction is freedom destroying. a chemical interrupt switch in
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> That being said, a world where taking things like adderall to compete in the employment world is not only accepted but possibly even expected scares the shit out of me.
Yet the near ubiquity of coffee doesn't both you?
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Just look at how we treat pregnancy and motherhood to see how we will treat people who don't use drugs if use becomes commonplace. People will make the same arguments, e.g. it's up to me if I want to, and I shouldn't be held back because you don't. You earn less because you choose not to take drugs, it's a lifestyle choice like being a vegetarian.
It's like dosing up on flu meds and coming in to work. You might earn a few extra bucks but now everyone else has the flu too. If the right to freedom ends where i
Think like you're young! (Score:3, Insightful)
The future of supervisors recommending their subordinates take medication such as adderall is already here. I've witnessed it myself at an ad and marketing agency in the northeast. A marketing director was pulled aside by a VP and president of the agency to say they've noticed a slight slowdown in her performance over the past year. They said it's okay, it "happens as we get older" and recommended she speak with one of several friendly doctors they recommend her for medication to give her a more youthful edge.
After that I understood the insanity behind the eyes of that VP, and how they could go from 7am to 2am for a week without crashing like others.
Re:Think like you're young! (Score:5, Insightful)
VPs don't use prescription medication to be up at all hours, they use cocaine. This also one of the reasons that most VPs are insane.
A short, speculative cautionary tale... (Score:5, Interesting)
When this came up a number of years ago on another forum, someone wrote:
[...] if the scientist working on a cure for cancer is doing this um what's the problem? Even if it were to have some negative side effects, and he knowingly chooses to risk it b/c he feels it will help him.
And I wrote this (slightly edited here):
Let's walk a few years down this road. It's 2025, and ehancers are legal, or at least their use is tolerated.
Your son has just joined a law firm. The other new arrivals are using Modafinil, or its successor, to let them work 100+ billable hours per week. While his employment agreement explicitly states that he's not required to use any enhancers, it's also clear that he'll never make partner without them. Is there an element of compulsion here?
Your daughter is getting ready to take her SATs; she's smart and ambitious, and wants to get into a top-tier school, eventually going into med school. Recent anonymous surveys indicate that 20% or more of students taking the test are using enhancers. Nobody's been able to do a formal study, but there are indications that these students are seeing boosts of 200-300 points in their scores. What advice do you give your daughter?
Fast-forward another ten years. Your kids have been using enhancers for the entire time. Originally, they were just a way to get a little extra "edge" -- but, having established a performance baseline while using them, who wants to become "dumber", slower, or sleepier by giving them up?
The problem is, the drugs aren't working quite as well as they used to. It's not surprising, really, at least not to a cognitively-enhanced neurochemist; enhancers, particularly the primitive second- and third-generation varieties, lead to short-term habituation and long-term neurological adaptation. New drugs are better, and with their help, new researchers are smarter. But they still can't do much to help those who scarred their brains with the older drugs.
Your son is fairly secure in his position as a full partner, but the firm's newest hires are scary. Most of them simply don't sleep, ever; they're at the office for days at a time without rest, and when they do take "time off", they're out skydiving, or rock-climbing, or just partying. Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?
Your daughter... your daughter isn't doing so well. She's landed a great residency, but the early-21st-century movement to limit the length of residents' shifts faltered and died in the face of enhancement drugs. She doesn't really need sleep, but she misses it, and she misses the companionship that was once associated with it. (Who wants to be involved with a surgical resident, who's almost never home?) When she does try to sleep, her dreams are invaded by the brain-burn victims she sees at work, and she wakes up screaming.
And sometimes the dreams intrude while she's nominally "awake". It's an increasingly common syndrome in long-term gen-3 enhancement users. The neurochemists are hoping that the new gen-5 products will help reduce this symptom.
I think we will go down this road. There's a very good chance I'll go down this road -- I've never felt like there was any such thing as being "smart enough". I think people in general, and researchers in particular, will be able to become "more intelligent", and once they do, they'll be able to figure out ways to accelerate the process.
But I think it's going to hurt. A lot.
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They can't, which is why it won't happen. People at the top are there because they're very good at hamstringing competition. So the only legal performance enhancers will be those that are either inefficient, like coffee, or too expensive for you to afford.
Of course the situation will change once more efficient things like direct brain-computer hookups become a
Re:A short, speculative cautionary tale... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't, which is why it won't happen. People at the top are there because they're very good at hamstringing competition. So the only legal performance enhancers will be those that are either inefficient, like coffee, or too expensive for you to afford.
And if people are willing to risk their lives and freedom to get an illegal drug that just makes them high, what makes you think laws will prevent them from getting a drug that makes them more money?
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It's already happening (Score:4, Insightful)
"Your son is fairly secure in his position as a full partner, but the firm's newest hires are scary. Most of them simply don't sleep, ever; they're at the office for days at a time without rest, and when they do take "time off", they're out skydiving, or rock-climbing, or just partying. Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?"
Senior technical person here, >20 years experience. Top performer, creative, award winner, generating new work,etc.
Annual performance review time... Supervisor says. "You're doing great. Your raise is at the top of the range we're allowed to give. You got a bonus. But, there's a bunch of scary smart fresh-outs coming in. They don't sleep, they're incredibly productive, they're cheap (50% of my pay), they aren't married, they don't have kids. What are you going to do to differentiate yourself?"
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"Your son is fairly secure in his position as a full partner, but the firm's newest hires are scary. Most of them simply don't sleep, ever; they're at the office for days at a time without rest, and when they do take "time off", they're out skydiving, or rock-climbing, or just partying. Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?"
Senior technical person here, >20 years experience. Top performer, creative, award winner, generating new work,etc.
Annual performance review time... Supervisor says. "You're doing great. Your raise is at the top of the range we're allowed to give. You got a bonus. But, there's a bunch of scary smart fresh-outs coming in. They don't sleep, they're incredibly productive, they're cheap (50% of my pay), they aren't married, they don't have kids. What are you going to do to differentiate yourself?"
So you're at the top and expect to stay there forever because....?
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Annual performance review time... Supervisor says. "You're doing great. Your raise is at the top of the range we're allowed to give. You got a bonus. But, there's a bunch of scary smart fresh-outs coming in. They don't sleep, they're incredibly productive, they're cheap (50% of my pay), they aren't married, they don't have kids. What are you going to do to differentiate yourself?"
It is time to take your money and walk away for some time. Let's those fresh-outs burn themselves out, then you can either come back or work as consultants fixing their messes.
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what about the truck driver up for the last 36 hours with only a 8 hour rest rest period from his last 36 hour work period is high on the pep drugs and blackouts and hits the school bus with your son on it and you son dies then who will you feel about drugs like that?
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That's a terrifying scenario. I have no idea who I'd feel...
You're a bigfinger... you can feel whoever the hell you wanted to ;-)
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I posted that late night NHL playoff games will get to you.
Re:A short, speculative cautionary tale... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's travel back to 1965 when these drugs were legal. A nurse I know mentioned how Adderall was freely available at the nurses station, and after a period of experimentation (I believe she made mention of working a 60 hour week), most everyone dialed it the fuck down, and its use was mostly relegated to having a case of the Mondays, with a few burnouts here and there. This was also when three martini lunches were in vogue. Can you risk not having a few drinks with your business partners? Would you really call that performance enhancing?
Fact is our drug war has been the response to already going down this road before, and in case the evidence from Portugal isn't clear, most people tend to reduce there drug use across the board when they are legal.
The other side to performance enhancing drugs is that they tend to increase your ability to do physical labor, but otherwise they make you sloppy. 100 billable hours isn't much good if only 25 of them are useful, and you don't see meth heads rising to the top of industry or otherwise courted for employment.
The biggest factor in their use now is that they are illegal, and only a select few can pull the right strings to get them, which gives them a temporary advantage.
But if they are freely available? Most people still won't touch them, and are capable enough that even a slight increase in other's performance (at best, they will land you 5-10 more points on a standardized test) is indistinguishable from natural variation. Especial in the case of speed, there has been enough scaremongering (speed kills) regarding that is laughable. Drugs are a fun tangent, but eventually real, clear-headed work needs to be done.
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Curious if you had written that last part some years ago, and if you still feel you're going down that road today.
Thanks for sharing that. Interesting and scary.
And for the skeptics here, rewind 75 years ago to all of your beloved sports fields. They were once covered with players that did NOT enhance themselves.
It's not so impossible to see that same mentality take over the workplace. And sadly for the same damn reason. To "win".
having them all starve? (Score:2)
just have them brake the law and let the state take up the cost of housing / food / doctors.
Soviet Production Norms for the Win! (Score:3)
America, a nation of Stakhanovites.
Say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the response I gave when coworkers at the office ask if I drink coffee:
> They don't pay me enough to take performance enhancing drugs.
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amphetamine - no adverse side effects? (Score:4, Informative)
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?
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Meh, it will becomes one of those things that's expected but never put on paper -- can't have surviving family suing the company for wrongful death, can we?
Gotta keep it under the table, and entirely " the employee's personal choice* ".
*-- if they want to advance in their career with us
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Re:amphetamine - no adverse side effects? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and table salt (NaCl) and cyanide (NaCN) are just two kinds of sodium salts. That doesn't mean they affect the body the same way, though!
Besides, dosage matters (a lot!), and the dosage of Adderall used medicinally is way, way lower than the typical recreational dosage of meth, according to Wikipedia.
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Looks like someone rediscovered Dan Hurley's book. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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None of that matters in corporate America. It's all about short term gains. Workers are nothing but a resource to use up, wear out, and throw away. If they can get a 10% productivity boost at the expense of your health and well being, that is a no brainer! If you get burned out, they can just as easily get rid of you and replace you with someone for half your salary.
The only thing that matters is stock price.
If we're all going to take Adderall... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then let's all agree not to take it. As we really only care about the relative performance when compared against your peers. If all your peers did it, you'd be in the same place you are now.
Might be better is if we all worked less, got paid less and hired a few more people. I realize some people want to work 50 hours a week (or more), but I don't and it's been hard to not do that and stay in my industry.
Re:If we're all going to take Adderall... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
If safe, any more controversial than vaccines? (Score:2)
If you get immunized, you also get ahead in live and work by unnaturally avoiding diseases. Lately there has been noise about forcing people to get shots no matter what they think. Personally I think you should have a choice. But if there are drugs for which beneficial effects dramatically outweigh side effects, I am all for their use becoming widespread. Adderall is definitely not it - current drugs are too blunt and uniformly carried thoughout the body, causing side effects to organs. The future is gene t
Crap article (Score:5, Interesting)
On Drugs, Performance and ADHD (Score:2)
What a load of shit. Luckily there are other MD's posting in the comments on just how biased this writer is. He's basically claiming ADHD is a kid's only issue, and all adults are just abusers. People like him must HATE people like myself...a doctor-monitored adderall prescription for several years now. With it, I'm able to more fully use my capabilities. Without it, people would always comment "your really smart, but..." due to all the random and chaotic things I would do and say. Honestly, without my pres
Working-man's drug (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is a drug that will make you more productive to your employer, it will be embraced and encouraged.
If there's a drug that gives you pleasure, but doesn't bring a similar boost to a company's bottom line, it will get you sent to jail.
Let's not pretend that adderall in the workplace isn't just more capitalist social engineering. They'll exploit you any way they can.
pretend you never heard of amphetamines (Score:2)
Now go take some Adderal. It's the same, just weaker. You'll be fine. Go make a little more money. Fuck sleep and living well.
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Adderall is hardly a weaker version of meth even though it is classified as an amphetamine. Cough and cold tablets, specifically nasal decongestants are also amphetamines but people don't turn into toothless zombies from taking them.
I do take Adderal in the workplace... (Score:2, Informative)
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
Jeeze (Score:3)
Nervous Breakdowns (Score:2)
People won't be able to cope with being smarter from a drug because they can't cope with naturally smart people enough in the first place, how will they cope actually *being* smarter?
They think they will be taking a drug to make them smarter (actually: "Not distracted by their *phone long enough to actually get some fucking work done") and trade off their ability to socialize for a perceived benefit that they already have were they to take responsibility for their own education, exercise, sleep and state o
Outcome of this? (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, I take dexamphetamine for work - and for a reason. I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I really couldn't handle any job without the prescription drug; even with it my productivity is highly spastic in nature.
I don't like the drug. I very rarely take it on my free time, it clamps down spontaneous creativity and makes life altogether more about performing it, less about enjoying it. Never mind that I often enough walk around the flat forgetting halfway where I was going, at least by taking the drug at work I can afford a flat to do it in.
Now I'm afraid that a bunch of morons who value money more than life are going to get hooked on amphetamines, get bad press and inadvertently make it either more difficult or impossible it to obtain legally, even with a perfectly valid reason and over a decade's history of using it responsibly.
Western society, after a century of propaganda, is a far cry from being ready to understand and treat drugs responsibly. This is not helping.
Off script (Score:3)
I had a student talk with me about Adderall abuse on campus.
He said it worked great, he could study all night but retention long-term was limited.
He also said he stopped taking Adderall off-script because it made him suicidal.
Whatever happened to coffee?
Also Paul Erdös took amphetamines (Score:2)
It is nothing new:
"Paul Erdös (1913-1996), "the man who loved only numbers", was one of the most brilliant and prolific mathematicians of the twentieth century. Erdös spent much of his restless life on psychostimulants. As he once remarked, "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
But Erdös liked stronger medicine too. After his mother's death in 1971, Erdös became quite depressed. His physician prescribed amphetamines. Erdös took Benzedrine or Ritalin almost e
Stupid Coworker (Score:3)
Aw geez... (Score:2)
I've worked with these people (Score:5, Insightful)
Adderrall is speed. It works for a brief period, but the cost even for brief use is high. And, whether they call it "meth" or prescription drugs it's addictive as hell. I did a gig in an area and industry where this sort of prescription drug abuse is rampant. It was so bad we had a hard time finding people that could even pass a dope test. But the dope tests apparently can be beaten because half the folks that made it to the job were on adderrall. Probably they had a prescription.
One guy just did it a couple of times--he got the job done by working about 30 hours straight. I didn't know he was high, but figured it out later. After his 30 hour work binge he was out "with the flu" for a day. When he got back after his day off, he still looked like he'd had the crap beaten out of him. This guy was a project leader and took it on himself to 'get it done no matter what'. Last I heard, he figured out that 'no matter what' was way too high a price and wasn't using. Boss agreed wholeheartedly--he'd rather explain failure to deliver than abuse his people. Good boss. When the abuse got too bad he walked us all off the job--you don't treat human beings that way and we were very lucky to have a boss that stood up for us.
Another guy was a more experienced user, and looked like he could maintain. Unfortunately he had the attention span of a gnat. I was ordered by the boss to finish up some of the guys work and as I went through the job I could see where he'd started on one task, then just abandoned it before it was done and jumped into the next task. The whole job was like that. It was easier to scrap it and do it myself than to try to figure out what was done and not.
A third guy just had no focus left at all. Also an experienced user. I'd give him a job to do, come back in a couple hours and he's gotten nothing done. I'd demonstrate the job again and return again; the only part that was completed was what I'd shown him. This guy was so burnt as to be inert. I suspect he was on a little more than just adderrall as he acted a little different.
I don't really see the point. (Score:5, Funny)
holy shit! a Squirrel just hopped from one branch to another outside my office window! A grey squirrel... Let me look that up on wikipedia...
dammit, DNS is down... I wonder if there's a new bind exploit? I should look it up. I'll use my phone because DNS is down.
Oh look! A text message!
whoa! There goes the squirrel again!
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there are few to no negative side effects, what does it matter if people lean on these drugs to work?
I've not used them myself, but I don't care if others do.
I would call chemical dependence, i.e. addiction, to be a pretty negative side effect. Wouldn't you?
That's even ignoring the people, like one person in the article, who used these pills to cut down on sleep to about 3 hours per night for weeks on end and these magic pills do nothing to replace sleep. Getting in a car accident with one of these zombies sounds pretty negative to me too.
Would you like some more negative effects? It's not exactly hard to find on Google.
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I struggle enough with caffeine and the negative effects of trying to keep intake manageable that I can't imagine how bad an addictive substance with much worse withdrawal symptoms would be.
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and then the worker comp attorneys come out of wood work and sue when some in a job uses drugs like this and things go bad and they end up in rehab
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not think people who rely on medication like Adderall or antidepressants should be allowed to drive.
Wow, I found myself so annoyed by your post I wanted to reply with "Fuck you!" However that's hardly constructive, even if it is in character. (Yeah, I'm trying to evolve.)
Anyway: some of us are productive, helpful, compassionate and useful members of society, but only when we take our medication on a regular basis. Typically we're not proud of that fact but it beats the alternative.
If it helps you feel better: when some of us identified by this generalisation fail to take our medication - for whatever reason - we suffer a special kind of agony that cannot be described or explained adequately to someone who does not need medication to function normally. Consider it a significant punishment, if that eases your conscience. In my own experience I've found it can take weeks to fully return to normal.
Would you feel as coldly towards a person suffering diabetes? A person who needs daily finger-prick blood testing and may even require insulin injections?
We didn't get to choose our brains or our bodies, just like you didn't get to choose yours.
Besides, if I had a choice I'd naturally rather be a unicorn, just like every other sane person out there.
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I do not think people who rely on medication like Adderall or antidepressants should be allowed to drive.
IDK about anti-depressants, but *news flash* speed actually improves concentration, which is very helpful in driving. I mean, why do you think people use it to study? It's a common misconception that all euphoria-producing drugs impair, as does alcohol. That's simply not true.
Of course, there is a kind of puritanism, particularly in the US, which is reflexively "anti-drug" when those drugs also produce any kind of euphoria. Much like masturbation is seen as self-abuse, any enjoyment of drugs is seen as drug
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Adderall is just taking it to the next level.
Maybe. Maybe not. There are no controlled studies that show any productivity benefit to a normal person taking Adderall. Many people "feel" that they benefit, but many people also feel that homeopathy cures their illnesses. TFA seems to make the assumption that these drugs actually work, when there is no scientific evidence that they do.
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
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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Your argument was effectively "it must do something bad! It's a stim! They make your heart asplode!", so I shot the specific. You've reduced it to, "Well it must hurt SOMEHOW," which is the same fallacy as the trade-off concept.
The trade-off concept is the familiar idea that you can't improve something by making it worse in every way. I usually address this by smashing a beverage vessel such that it no longer holds a beverage, and is perhaps laden with dangerous jagged edges, and deformed so as to ta
Re:"No Controlled Studies" - incorrect (Score:2)
"There are no controlled studies that show any productivity benefit to a normal person taking Adderall."
Sorry to hurt your Insightful rating, but looks like some new info just came in.
Link-Chain starting from Wikipedia:
(Best use of Wiki - start there, then follow the sources)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]
Performance-enhancing section
"A 2015 meta-analysis of high quality clinical trials confirmed that therapeutic doses of amphetamine and methylphenidate result in modest improvements in performance on work
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Did we learn nothing from the "War on Drugs"?
We sure did! We learned that drugs are freely available, as long as the right people profit from them!
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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....
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you WANT, truly WANT, to work at a place like that? I wouldn't. If the rest of my office used Adderal or another drug to get ahead, I want to GET OUT. Not only will the place eventually bomb, but dependance is a bitch. I will find, or create, a job where that isn't tolerated. And it's not hard - yes there are plenty of places that "won't care, (wink) (wink)," but there will be plenty where professionalism is still King and it simply would not be tolerated at all, not even under the table.
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Hahahahhahaha, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you don't work in IT cdwi?
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, one day the team leader says "Hey, spiritplumber, you look tired."
"Yeah, the work is exciting but I'm having a bit of a hard time keeping up."
"I know what you should do."
"Thanks, but I only need one Monday off to catch up on sleep."
"No, nothing like that. Go to this one doctor and he'll give you a prescription no questions asked."
"For what?"
"Oh, you know, allergy medication. It's probably why you've been under the weather." (Winks, I miss it because I'm derp).
"What's it called? I have" (herbal remedy) "for allergies."
"ProCentra. Tell him you work here."
So I go home, talk to my girlfriend who's a chem engie, and ask her what the hell that stuff is, so she tells me it's amphetamine. The next day, I explain to my team leader what my family does to people who get any of us into drugs, and quit. My father disapproves of the decision because he says I should also have punched the guy out after quitting.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
If there are few to no negative side effects, what does it matter if people lean on these drugs to work?
I've not used them myself, but I don't care if others do.
That's totally not true. Adderall can cause insomnia, uncontrollable sweating, thyroid problems, and a laundry list of other issues. Aside from that fact the main problem is that it becomes useless. Your brain doesn't rest properly but because you're on stimulants you don't recognize that you're tired and just keep going. That sounds great but it has a detrimental effect where the benefits are eliminated by the exhaustion your brain is experiencing and you end up right where you started (or worse off). Then when you go off them not only do you start sleeping more due to trying to recover, your mental state takes a hit and it takes weeks to recover your baseline productivity.
As someone who genuinely needs to take this class of stimulants I wouldn't wish them on anyone. They can help but if I can avoid taking them for long periods I do.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Caffeine is a horrible drug to form a dependence on.
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If there are few to no negative side effects, what does it matter if people lean on these drugs to work?
When the Adderal-ehanced cubemate of yours gets promoted and becomes your supervisor, you might care. That's the problem with this kind of bullshit becoming valued into the workplace.
I've not used them myself, but I don't care if others do.
When that Adderal-enhanced worker who's been up awake 27 hours straight working on that huge project finally tries to drive home and falls asleep behind the wheel, killing 3 people in a head-on collision...well, you know where I'm going with this...
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Of course, to your point, enhanced productivity for a quarter or two followed by the employee dropping dead is just fine with the Job Creators.
Re: perform beyond your norm (Score:3)
This comment is why this topic is so dangerous.
See my note elsewhere to get past the "there is no proof" type responses.
The meds *do* work, *both* normal and ADD people.
So then it's sometimes the tipping point between having a certain job or not. So then your salary is dependent on this choice. I do have ADD, and they DO help. When I don't take them, the results often show up in "irrational blunders", both technical and emotional. "No one cares" why you are "a substandard employee" - they're not going to ge
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"Call your doctor immediately if you experience a coding session lasting more than four hours, as this may indicate a serious side effect."
Re:So what? (Score:4, Funny)
"Call your doctor immediately if you experience a coding session lasting more than four hours, as this may indicate a serious side effect."
Doctor? Hell, I am calling a hooker!"
Re:Mandatory Marijuana Testing (Score:5, Interesting)
source, 10 years of competitive swimming and holder of 2 state records.
Re: Mandatory Marijuana Testing (Score:4, Interesting)
State-dependent learning (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just pot or meth. It's true for alcohol as well. The general phenomenon is called state-dependent memory [wikipedia.org], and it's been established science for many decades -- the Wikipedia article cites a text from 1835.
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It's not just pot or meth. It's true for alcohol as well. The general phenomenon is called state-dependent memory [wikipedia.org], and it's been established science for many decades -- the Wikipedia article cites a text from 1835.
Yeah, but if they get drunk again, do they get the memories back? Imagine the possibilities:
"We need to send an engineer to Yekaterinburg to diagnose some issues on site. Anyone speak Russian?"
"Hell, yeah, I'm totally fluent in Russian but only when I'm falling down drunk."
"Not a problem. You'll get along fine over there."
Re:State-dependent learning (Score:4, Informative)
This was actually a plot point in the movie Beer Fest. They couldn't remember where the tournament was being held and so one of them had to get drunk to so they could find it again.
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I thought it was called Ballmer peak... [xkcd.com]
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