this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Methylphenidate (concerta/ritalin), methamphetamine (desoxyn), dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine), Amphetamine (evekeo), pseudoepinephrine (cough syrup)
Desoxyn is the only one there is "meth". I am amazed it's an actual prescription drug and I concede I was wrong.
But the others you list are not the same at all.
They're all very chemically similar and will show hot for meth in a drug test. They all have similar effects for neurotypical people, and street meth has been used as a much cheaper but very unsafe and illegal alternative for the ADHD medications I listed. Street meth is derived from pseudoepinephrine.
Compare it to thc; the illegal substance as defined by the 2018 farm bill is THC-9. There's the legal substances THC-8, THC-10, HHC, THC-O, etc. All of them are technically not the illegal substance, but will have the exact same or extremely similar effects.
I don't think they are as similar as you make them out to be, and I'd appreciate sources for those claims.
More importantly, I think you're missing the point. "Meth", the illegal drug, is still different from the prescription drug form and is orders of magnitude stronger than Adderall et al. These should not be conflated, even as a joke, because it does serious damage to how people view medication that people need.
All of these are based an a hypothetical 'generic thc' that we can use as a base. delta 9 has a double bond on carbon 9 and 10, delta 8 has a double bond on carbon 8 and 9, delta 10 has a double bond on carbon 10 and 11. They are all so closely related that you'd probably still get a passing grade in high school chemistry for simply being able to identify any of them as thc. THC-O is identical to delta 9, except it has an additional acetate. HHC has no double bonds on the carbon ring, and instead has additional hydrogens. Delta-8 is roughly 70% as strong as delta-9, HHC has similar strength to delta-8, delta-10 is roughly 75% as effective as delta-9, and THC-O is roughly 120% as effective as delta-9 (though lasts for a shorter time) when it comes to effects. They all show up hot on a drug test for cannabis, because drug tests check the metabolites and they are all metabolized the same way.
How's an anecdote to start for Concerta? My fiancee takes it for ADHD, 54mg extended release and low dose Ritalin as PRN (though she rarely takes it). She's also a nurse, so has to take regular drug tests for work and when switching jobs. It always comes back hot for meth metabolites. Concerta is in the same amphetamine class as methamphetamine, though it has a lower risk for addiction. I'm not a pharmacist, so I apologize for a lack of detail on these drugs and how they work.
I wasn't asking about the THC stuff, since that's not really relevant to the conversation, besides your original analogy.
I don't think being in the "same class" means they are the same strength. Also, being "chemically similar" means little. H20 and H202 are "chemically similar" as well, but you would die if you drank a glass of the latter.
'chemically similar' as in pharmacology, not chemistry. Like I said, I'm not a pharmacist so any explanation would be insufficient. Every drug source I can find compares methamphetamine, methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine, and amphetamine to each other. They all also produce the same metabolites. You're technically correct when you say they aren't meth, but I specifically brought up thc because I'm drawing comparisons to why it doesn't actually matter; to the average person it's all meth.
That's the problem. It's not meth. People who are prescribed Adderall, concerta, or whatever should not be treated like they're "basically doing meth". That is what happens when we keep letting people think it's the same.
Why does this distinction matter for the average person? Street meth and concerta are both equally bad for neurotypical people.
Wut. They are not equally bad at all. "Street meth" is objectively worse. And therein lies the problem. You're very confident in your understanding of these drugs and you're treating them as they are the same. When people do that, they also associate drug addicts and everything negative about drugs to the notion of taking prescribed ADHD medicine.
"chemically similar"
Ffs, chirality is just one example of chemicals that are "similar" but that can have very different effects. Thalidimide is one example where a molecule was useful for morning sickness in pregnant women, but its mirror image molecule caused birth defects.