11 ms·

25% of students age 16-32 take Adderall 1-7 times per week, not prescribed

95 points by revolucien 5y ago

BrianOnHN 5y ago
> I just learned from a colleague and it was confirmed by every student I asked, that 25% of students age 16-32 take Adderall 1-7X/week (not prescribed). And 5-10% do the same w/Modafinil or Armodafanil; 30-35% of students are on amphetamine Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. Source is seemingly "anecdata." And this was posted on Twitter. Probably not much to see here other than some outrage for attention.
- snvzz 5y ago
  >Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. Yeah, it isn't. It's a nootropic like caffeine. Similar effects, lasts longer, doesn't create a dependence. It's arguably better than caffeine, and I can understand its use. Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    It lasts too long for me. I would take it early in the morning, and I'd still be wired at 2am the following night, unable to sleep. Made it unusable.
    - mckirk 5y ago
      Did you have the experience with Modafinil or Armodafinil? Armoda is meant to last longer; probably too long for some people to take regularly. It's also more anxiety-inducing, so despite being the 'older' variant, moda might be the better choice for a lot of people.
      - _dain_ 5y ago
        I don't remember, it was years ago. The brand was "Modalert", so whatever they put in that. It also gave me a low-grade headache, dry mouth, grinding my teeth, and my pee stank of sulphur. Wouldn't recommend.
        BrianOnHN 5y ago
        Try drinking an adequate amount of water, everyday, as it solves the dehydration[1] you're experiencing. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dehydration/symptoms-causes/syc-20354086 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dehydration/s...
    - snvzz 5y ago
      I'm not exactly promoting its use. Just saying I can understand. I use plain old coffee/tea. I do hear that some people are super sensitive to modafinil, and that these people often divide a standard pill in 4 slices and take just one such slice. I did try it in the past and, as far as I can tell, I am one of these people (took 1/4 from the very start, and yet so strong). It was very good at helping with being awake (and not sleepy) and making it slightly easier to focus. But it also had this annoying "higher threshold for finger movement" that absolutely killed automatic finger movement and thus playing rhythm games (deresute/mirishita/sif/...)
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    Tried it once took half pills effect was quite nice imho just to check it out. half a pill was good for like 6 hours of concentrated/focused work.
  - cowpig 5y ago
    Isn't the definition of a nootropic a drug taken for the purposes of cognitive enhancement? So adderall is both an amephetamine and a nootropic?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity. Wait until you learn about all the people that smoke and/or drink alcohol!
  - jvanderbot 5y ago
    Dependence no, diminishing returns yes. Modafonil is not a toy. It can ramp anxiety and paranoia through the roof.
  - ac29 5y ago
    > Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity. Why? Amphetamine is arguably better than caffeine as well, and serves a similar purpose. Thats obviously somewhat subjective, though.
- kongin 5y ago
  >Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. The last time I went on a modafinil bender I didn't sleep for a week and ended that with a 12 hour masturbation session involving a lot of blood. That's not really that much different to what happened the one time I did meth, apart from there being a lot less violence. Modafinil should be way more regulated than it is.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    > I didn't sleep for a week lies
    - mlboss 5y ago
      I was also not able to sleep properly after taking modafinil. Which in turns affected my concentration. In my opinion, the best drug is good sleep and less stress.
      - jvanderbot 5y ago
        Your story is hard to believe, but your conclusion is correct. Sleep, exercise, caffeine and theanine (mild nootropics) are the best supported performance enhancing drugs for intellectual work. Modafonil is good for alertness when you cannot sleep, but doesn't really help with the 'good mania' unless your main blocker is mental exhaustion.
        joveian 5y ago
        It should be very easy to believe considering the half life of R-modafinil is 15 hours (armodafinil and half of regular modafinil). Even a single dose could cause sleep disruption for multiple days and longer if the initial disruption leads to circadian disruption. But it is interesting that both somnolence and insomnia seem to be in the "very common" category (1-10%) of side effects. Sleep disorder is in the "uncommon" (.1-1%) category, which is quite a few people developing sleep disorders taking modafinil. https://www.drugs.com/sfx/modafinil-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/modafinil-side-effects.html
      - 5y ago
- Kydlaw 5y ago
  > Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. That's not what he said. The different responses he gave to the questions asked on his tweet are actually interesting, you might have a look.
  - gwern 5y ago
    "25%" + "5-10%" = "30-35%".
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  It does sound like the post is talking about anecdata, but there have been some studies looking at prescription drug usage in students: 2018: https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf 2015: https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f2e9/documents/cpds-key-findings-report-2015.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f... Sure, there is still some issues with the methodology since it's a self-reported internet survey. Data I'll report below is formatted as 2015/2018. 18.6% / 15.9% of respondents admitted to misusing stimulants for non-medical reasons, 84.9% / 79.2% of stimulant users reported using it to study or improve grades. Consequence of use: 63% / 60% of stimulant users reported "Experienced a positive impact on your academics as a result of your use" What follows was only reported in 2018: When are you most likely to misuse prescription drugs to study? 76% answered during finals or exams, 53% Before a test or project, 38% When I feel behind, 17% When I want to get ahead, 6% When I need a competitive edge, 8% Continuously throughout the term. When did you start misusing prescription drugs to study? Undergrads n = 1,399: 29% Before college, 38% first year, 21% second year, 10% third year, 3% fourth year or later. Grads / professional students n = 381: 10% Before college, 73% during college, 3% between grad college and grad school, 8% first year of grad / prof, 6% second year of grad/prof or later. The 2015 study reports: Actual versus Perceived Use Among CPDS Student Respondents - Stimulants Undergrads Actual: 18.6% Perceived: 33.6% Grads Actual: 6.8% Perceived: 24.2% We can use that to potentially assess the reported anecdata. > Probably not much to see here other than some outrage for attention. I think it depends. If the research quoted in [1] is correct, then taking these drugs either has no effect, or it only benefits low-performers. So, if it's only benefiting low-performers, then it needs to be determined if these low-performers are turned into high-performers, and, if so, does this mean typical high-performers without additional enhancements are losing out to those who are enhanced? I suppose it's more an ethical / moral value judgement than anything else. As they say in American sports: if you're not cheating, you're not competing. [1] https://www.altamirarecovery.com/blog/adderall-addiction-amongst-california-tech-workers-requires-intensive-treatment/ https://www.altamirarecovery.com/blog/adderall-addiction-amo...
MontyCarloHall 5y ago
Are there any studies speculating on long term health effects of kids being addicted to low grade amphetamines? This is a new enough phenomenon that I don’t think there are sufficient data to draw definitive conclusions from.
- tokai 5y ago
  Is it new though? Erdős famously took amphetamines all his life. The only drug Tarn Adams (Dwarf Fortress creator) ever tried was meth during his Maths degree. Stims and academia seems like a classic combination to me.
  - MontyCarloHall 5y ago
    Certainly academics have used amphetamines since their discovery, but it was my understanding people like Erdős were anomalies. Assuming the tweet is true, stims are being used by an unprecedentedly high proportion of students. Perhaps there are no ill health effects at mild to moderate doses, but I just don’t think they’ve been used widely enough until recently to definitively draw conclusions either way.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  > This is a new enough phenomenon This is a common misconception. Amphetamine was used to treat childhood ADHD going back to the 1930s. (Not to mention that amphetamine was widely used to treat sinus congestion and allergies in everyone, including children.) Medical amphetamine usage was significantly higher in the 1950s and 1960s than today. We’ve been on a long term secular decline in amphetamine usage (along with caffeine, nicotine and other stimulants).
  - MontyCarloHall 5y ago
    Prescribed medical use may have been higher, but was overall use higher? Assuming the anecdata in the tweet are true, I just can’t imagine 20-30% of people aged 16-30 were prescribed amphetamines in the 50s. Anyway, given that medical use was probably high enough back in the day that we can draw reliable conclusions about its long-term effects, are there any studies discussing this?
overkill28 5y ago
FYI the source for this data is "a colleague and... every student I asked".
- tokai 5y ago
  "it was confirmed by every student I asked" Makes it sounds like every student confirmed that 30% of students were taking stims, instead of 30% of students he asked was taking stims.
nso 5y ago
Could anyone here tell us about their experience with "study drugs"? When did this start to become a phenomenon, because it certainly was not in the time and place I studied.
- luckylion 5y ago
  I can tell you about my experience with modafinil / armodafinil. For the record, I'm 40. I've never been diagnosed with anything, and I wasn't terrible in school, but I was never really able to concentrate for too long. I kind of tumbled into IT after school and it worked for me, if I got 2 hours of concentrated work in per day, I'd get by. A friend of mine had taken modafinil and recommended it to me like three years ago. I tried it and it was extreme, I was able to sit down and just work on stuff and get it done without getting distracted every few minutes. I took it once or twice a week because of all the propaganda surrounding all drugs. I've switch to armodafinil because I found it to work more reliable for me. About two years ago, I started taking armodafinil each & every day, and it's great. I have no negative side-effects that I attribute to it (well, I've gained weight, but weight has been up & down for me my whole life), I sleep well, and it allows me to get into the flow quickly, remain there for hours, and stay productive. I still have the occasional day where I don't get anything done, but it tends to be because I'm subconsciously avoiding some task, and recognizing that helps me get over it. These past two years were easily more productive than the previous 8-10. I wish I had known about it earlier. Looking back, it feels like I've wasted a lot of time before.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    Have you tried adrafinil at any point, or any other nootropic drugs?
    - luckylion 5y ago
      Pretty much only modafinil and then armodafinil. I've taken piracetam for a while (because hey, why not, maybe it does something), but didn't get any noticeable effect. The same goes for supplements, no noticeable effect. I'm far from an expert on any of this. I found something that works very well for me, but I'm not making any claims that it'll work for anyone else. I personally know two others who take modafinil, and while there's some overlap in our experiences, they don't have the same effects I do (they do have effects though, and both take it occasionally, but not regularly).
pclmulqdq 5y ago
Some fraction of this is almost certainly due to taking them as an "academic steroid" rather than having a diagnosis for a condition that needs amphetamines. The abuse of these drugs is a very real problem in schools, but some students legitimately need them so it's hard to come up with a blanket policy. Edit: according to the tweet, all of this is due to recreational or performance enhancing use.
- teeray 5y ago
  Anecdotally, I remember classmates in college using Adderall as a performance enhancing drug prior to taking exams. You could randomly drug test a subset of students and check against prescriptions, but that might get onerous.
  - angrais 5y ago
    Could you not skip those with prescriptions to the stimulants (Adderall, etc) to reduce sample space? Then your method would work well in theory. Of course, in practice, who wants to take a drug test? Certainly not before an exam! It would be chaotic
0x_rs 5y ago
This figure provided is wholly anecdotal and pretty much worthless if not to bring the topic in question. However, it sure is concerning that many consider abusing prescription drugs with possibly severe, long lasting side effects to attempt to improve studying effectiveness (or because of self diagnosed ADHD and the likes..). It may become another drug epidemic, if it's not too late already. Misinformation and dubious claims from people on the internets don't help when the most afflicted group is students trying to improve their grades and performance, desperately at times too.
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  >This figure provided is wholly anecdotal and pretty much worthless How else would you propose answering the question, besides asking people? Election polling is also "anecdotal".
  - potatoman22 5y ago
    I think if we knew more about the sample size and data collection process this could be less anecdotal
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Election polling is not anecdotal. There's a range of things you need to do to turn asking people into data successfully.
  - geofft 5y ago
    This is like saying that HTTPS is just security by obscurity because you have to keep the private key secret. The distinction between anecdotes and data is whether you gather the information in a structured and reliable way. I would, in all seriousness, recommend a high school statistics textbook if this is new to you. There's a whole bunch of interesting stuff, including how you don't need a very large sample size to be able to draw conclusions from the data, but you do need to ask your questions in a rigorous way.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    Turns out there are a variety of ways to ask people. There’s a whole area of study around it because it’s so hard to get right.
LinuxBender 5y ago
As a side note I do something not as powerful as what is described here but it helps me focus. I combine the non-essential amino acid L-Theanine (from green tea) with caffeine to give me a more calm focused mind. Again, nowhere near as powerful as these drugs but there are also no side effects that I know of. Maybe this could be an alternative for some folks?
riffraff 5y ago
this is in the US? I am old now, but I don't remember pills being this common 10-20 years go in Europe. Does anyone have data across countries?
padastra 5y ago
We should apply a high degree of emotional moderation, if not actual moderation, to outrage-generating anecdata. Sometimes it gives insights into society in a way that data does not capture or for which data is not available (e.g. organized retail theft in SF, or the difficulty of getting an abortion in an otherwise 'legal' state), but oftentimes it just serves to trigger emotional responses and invite conflict (see https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-play-in-three https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-pl...).
fny 5y ago
For anyone who cares, here are the official statistics. > Among U.S. adults, 6.6% (annual average) used prescription stimulants overall; 4.5% used without misuse, 1.9% misused without use disorders, and 0.2% had use disorders. [0] With that as a prior, this anecdata seems far off unless there's something horribly wrong at Stanford. Practically, I'm not sure where kids are getting this stuff to supply amphetamine at a 1-7 rate, unless they're buying straight up meth. I'd be more inclined to believe 25% have taken it once a semester or in their careers, but weekly? [0]: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17091048 https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.20...
- bix6 5y ago
  Go into a college library around finals week and you will see just how over prescribed and readily available these drugs are.
  - gruez 5y ago
    I saw zero prescription stimulent usage/availability during my college education. Granted, I wasn't hanging out at the library too often but if it was really that common that I'd have seen it at least once in the few years I was there. Maybe I was just super unaware.
    - dexwiz 5y ago
      You were unaware.
  - david_allison 5y ago
    ~5 years ago in the UK, I used to say that there were more people on drugs in the library than there were in the clubs.
- Kydlaw 5y ago
  Right from the conclusion of the article that you linked: > Patients who are using their medication for cognitive enhancement or diverting their medication to others present a high risk. I think the Standford population do not fit with the results of your study (that look at the US population in general). These people ARE using these drugs for cognitive enhancement. Now get back to the article conclusion.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
Apparently we have constructed a society in which everyone, including children, has to spend all day doing things they can't care about without pharmaceutical help. When this last happened under the Qin dynasty, it ended in the Taiping Rebellion, and produced nothing of value except those little canned oranges. I hear pornographic performers are on Viagra too. Meanwhile nobody actually has children, and CO2 PPM keeps going up and up and up. What the fuck is everyone doing? Just going through the motions on pills, while our intrinsic motivations scream at us that we're supposed to be doing something else.
- api 5y ago
  Nobody planned this. It’s the result of emergent behavior in complex systems and feedback loops. We are still absolutely at the mercy of such forces. They rule us. We sort of understand them (game theory, complexity, evolutionary dynamics) but have yet to come up with any reliable way of controlling them. Totalitarian government force is the best we can do, and it comes with equally large downsides and is itself subject to the same forces over time. It’s a very clunky primitive instrument. I feel like we will not truly become an intelligent species until we are able to flip the table on the complex system in which we are embedded. Until then we are merely very clever animals. True intelligence has yet to evolve on this planet.
  - stackbutterflow 5y ago
    Like ants? All for the colony. We would already be on Mars if we behaved like ants but what kind of life is that.
    - fellellor 5y ago
      Not ants, rather societies that can agree on long term, as opposed to short term, economic goals and modify them easily when needed. Most individual humans aren’t able to do this. A society able to achieve it would be truly remarkable. Despotic systems like communism on the other hand only reflect the goals of a chosen few. So by human limitation these goals can never adequately represent the complexity of the governed. Such societies will inevitably degenerate and fall behind. While pure market oriented societies can fall into “activity traps” from which it might be hard for them to climb out of.
Zababa 5y ago
Here's another way of looking at it: if amphetamines or modafinil are performance enhancing and generally safe (or at least, safer than nicotine), why shouldn't people be allowed to take them?
- david_allison 5y ago
  Same argument for anabolic steroids: assuming they have non-zero harm, if they are effective then there is strong pressure to consume them to succeed when in a competitive environment.
Rd6n6 5y ago
Somebody on twitter who knows somebody who said something is not the reliable source we want for this conclusion
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danShumway 5y ago
If this is actually true, it does seem to be worth asking whether we're doing a good job with how we're structuring secondary education. If someone isn't in a position where they have a medical reason to take this stuff, but they still feel like they need to -- there are a lot of reasons that might be happening, but it also could indicate something may be wrong with the environment they're in, and that should probably be a part of the conversation.
- david_allison 5y ago
  It's similar to issues with performance enhancing drugs. If your course is graded so the top x% get an A, and people are using drugs to get ahead, then there's pressure to take study drugs to level the playing field with your peers. The end state is everyone taking drugs, and nobody being any better off academically.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Invite friends to fail the course for you?
  - luckylion 5y ago
    > The end state is everyone taking drugs, and nobody being any better off academically. Will society be better off though? I mean, the same point can be made for using any new technology. I use a computer so now you need to use a computer to stay competitive. Now we both use a computer, so we're at a stale mate once again. But we're both working much more efficiently on a much higher level, and society is definitely better off even if neither of us has any lasting advantage over the other. Whether that's the case with academics and stimulants, I don't know. Would Paul Erdős have made the same contributions without stimulants? Would we be settling on Mars if everyone optimized for maximum brain output?
    - chii 5y ago
      > the same point can be made for using any new technology. The difference is that some technology don't harm the user, while others do. Drugs tend to harm your biology, usually - that's why taking steroids isn't recommended. So is society willing to sacrifice (some people' s) health for such progress?
ithacaman 5y ago
Oh so that is the "merit" everyone keeps talking about needed to get a FAANG job. I guess Merit the generic name for Adderall.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The personal responsibility story would also imply that everyone should take performance enhancing medication. After all, it's everyone for themselves.
ramphastidae 5y ago
The title and tweet contents are completely anecdotal (ie false), although the title implies a study was done. I flagged this.
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  I suppose I should have read all of the comments before posting my response to another comment. There has been a study on this: 2018: https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf 2015: https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f2e9/documents/cpds-key-findings-report-2015.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f... In 2015 18.6% and in 2018 15.9% of respondents admitted to misusing stimulants for non-medical reasons Perhaps adjust the Twitter link to an actual study instead of being removed altogether. It does seem there is something to discuss even if the reported anecdotes are flawed.
  - ac29 5y ago
    > In 2015 18.6% and in 2018 15.9% of respondents admitted to misusing stimulants for non-medical reasons I read the 2018 study. It should be noted that the 15.9% who reported using stimulants was for lifetime use. Of those 15.9%, 37% hadn't used them even once in the past year, and 47% had used them 1-9 times in the past year. This is a huge difference from 25% of students using "1-7X/week" like in the tweet. 1-7X a week would put them into the 50+ in the past year category, which in this study was 3% of the 15.9% of lifetime users, or 0.4% overall. Two orders of magnitude less.
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triggercut 5y ago
As an adult recently diagnosed with a marginal attention defficit, who has recently started a perscription of dexies, I really think I'm missing some trick even more now. The only results I've seen so far are extremely subtle (general feelings of lethergy have reduced slightly, generally a little more content / less depressed, can read for longer periods of time during the day without falling asleep) only after weeks of taking concistently, the first few days I didn't notice anything. Nothing like the sudden surge of focus and energy described here after taking a single dose. What quantities are these kids/young adults taking to get this effect?

95 points by revolucien 5y ago

> I just learned from a colleague and it was confirmed by every student I asked, that 25% of students age 16-32 take Adderall 1-7X/week (not prescribed). And 5-10% do the same w/Modafinil or Armodafanil; 30-35% of students are on amphetamine Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. Source is seemingly "anecdata." And this was posted on Twitter. Probably not much to see here other than some outrage for attention.

snvzz 5y ago
>Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. Yeah, it isn't. It's a nootropic like caffeine. Similar effects, lasts longer, doesn't create a dependence. It's arguably better than caffeine, and I can understand its use. Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  It lasts too long for me. I would take it early in the morning, and I'd still be wired at 2am the following night, unable to sleep. Made it unusable.
  - mckirk 5y ago
    Did you have the experience with Modafinil or Armodafinil? Armoda is meant to last longer; probably too long for some people to take regularly. It's also more anxiety-inducing, so despite being the 'older' variant, moda might be the better choice for a lot of people.
    - _dain_ 5y ago
      I don't remember, it was years ago. The brand was "Modalert", so whatever they put in that. It also gave me a low-grade headache, dry mouth, grinding my teeth, and my pee stank of sulphur. Wouldn't recommend.
      - BrianOnHN 5y ago
        Try drinking an adequate amount of water, everyday, as it solves the dehydration[1] you're experiencing. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dehydration/symptoms-causes/syc-20354086 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dehydration/s...
  - snvzz 5y ago
    I'm not exactly promoting its use. Just saying I can understand. I use plain old coffee/tea. I do hear that some people are super sensitive to modafinil, and that these people often divide a standard pill in 4 slices and take just one such slice. I did try it in the past and, as far as I can tell, I am one of these people (took 1/4 from the very start, and yet so strong). It was very good at helping with being awake (and not sleepy) and making it slightly easier to focus. But it also had this annoying "higher threshold for finger movement" that absolutely killed automatic finger movement and thus playing rhythm games (deresute/mirishita/sif/...)
- dragonelite 5y ago
  Tried it once took half pills effect was quite nice imho just to check it out. half a pill was good for like 6 hours of concentrated/focused work.
- cowpig 5y ago
  Isn't the definition of a nootropic a drug taken for the purposes of cognitive enhancement? So adderall is both an amephetamine and a nootropic?
- Zababa 5y ago
  > Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity. Wait until you learn about all the people that smoke and/or drink alcohol!
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  Dependence no, diminishing returns yes. Modafonil is not a toy. It can ramp anxiety and paranoia through the roof.
- ac29 5y ago
  > Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity. Why? Amphetamine is arguably better than caffeine as well, and serves a similar purpose. Thats obviously somewhat subjective, though.
kongin 5y ago
>Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. The last time I went on a modafinil bender I didn't sleep for a week and ended that with a 12 hour masturbation session involving a lot of blood. That's not really that much different to what happened the one time I did meth, apart from there being a lot less violence. Modafinil should be way more regulated than it is.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  > I didn't sleep for a week lies
  - mlboss 5y ago
    I was also not able to sleep properly after taking modafinil. Which in turns affected my concentration. In my opinion, the best drug is good sleep and less stress.
    - jvanderbot 5y ago
      Your story is hard to believe, but your conclusion is correct. Sleep, exercise, caffeine and theanine (mild nootropics) are the best supported performance enhancing drugs for intellectual work. Modafonil is good for alertness when you cannot sleep, but doesn't really help with the 'good mania' unless your main blocker is mental exhaustion.
      - joveian 5y ago
        It should be very easy to believe considering the half life of R-modafinil is 15 hours (armodafinil and half of regular modafinil). Even a single dose could cause sleep disruption for multiple days and longer if the initial disruption leads to circadian disruption. But it is interesting that both somnolence and insomnia seem to be in the "very common" category (1-10%) of side effects. Sleep disorder is in the "uncommon" (.1-1%) category, which is quite a few people developing sleep disorders taking modafinil. https://www.drugs.com/sfx/modafinil-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/modafinil-side-effects.html
    - 5y ago
Kydlaw 5y ago
> Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. That's not what he said. The different responses he gave to the questions asked on his tweet are actually interesting, you might have a look.
- gwern 5y ago
  "25%" + "5-10%" = "30-35%".
wheelinsupial 5y ago
It does sound like the post is talking about anecdata, but there have been some studies looking at prescription drug usage in students: 2018: https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf 2015: https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f2e9/documents/cpds-key-findings-report-2015.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f... Sure, there is still some issues with the methodology since it's a self-reported internet survey. Data I'll report below is formatted as 2015/2018. 18.6% / 15.9% of respondents admitted to misusing stimulants for non-medical reasons, 84.9% / 79.2% of stimulant users reported using it to study or improve grades. Consequence of use: 63% / 60% of stimulant users reported "Experienced a positive impact on your academics as a result of your use" What follows was only reported in 2018: When are you most likely to misuse prescription drugs to study? 76% answered during finals or exams, 53% Before a test or project, 38% When I feel behind, 17% When I want to get ahead, 6% When I need a competitive edge, 8% Continuously throughout the term. When did you start misusing prescription drugs to study? Undergrads n = 1,399: 29% Before college, 38% first year, 21% second year, 10% third year, 3% fourth year or later. Grads / professional students n = 381: 10% Before college, 73% during college, 3% between grad college and grad school, 8% first year of grad / prof, 6% second year of grad/prof or later. The 2015 study reports: Actual versus Perceived Use Among CPDS Student Respondents - Stimulants Undergrads Actual: 18.6% Perceived: 33.6% Grads Actual: 6.8% Perceived: 24.2% We can use that to potentially assess the reported anecdata. > Probably not much to see here other than some outrage for attention. I think it depends. If the research quoted in [1] is correct, then taking these drugs either has no effect, or it only benefits low-performers. So, if it's only benefiting low-performers, then it needs to be determined if these low-performers are turned into high-performers, and, if so, does this mean typical high-performers without additional enhancements are losing out to those who are enhanced? I suppose it's more an ethical / moral value judgement than anything else. As they say in American sports: if you're not cheating, you're not competing. [1] https://www.altamirarecovery.com/blog/adderall-addiction-amongst-california-tech-workers-requires-intensive-treatment/ https://www.altamirarecovery.com/blog/adderall-addiction-amo...

MontyCarloHall 5y ago

Are there any studies speculating on long term health effects of kids being addicted to low grade amphetamines? This is a new enough phenomenon that I don’t think there are sufficient data to draw definitive conclusions from.

tokai 5y ago
Is it new though? Erdős famously took amphetamines all his life. The only drug Tarn Adams (Dwarf Fortress creator) ever tried was meth during his Maths degree. Stims and academia seems like a classic combination to me.
- MontyCarloHall 5y ago
  Certainly academics have used amphetamines since their discovery, but it was my understanding people like Erdős were anomalies. Assuming the tweet is true, stims are being used by an unprecedentedly high proportion of students. Perhaps there are no ill health effects at mild to moderate doses, but I just don’t think they’ve been used widely enough until recently to definitively draw conclusions either way.
dcolkitt 5y ago
> This is a new enough phenomenon This is a common misconception. Amphetamine was used to treat childhood ADHD going back to the 1930s. (Not to mention that amphetamine was widely used to treat sinus congestion and allergies in everyone, including children.) Medical amphetamine usage was significantly higher in the 1950s and 1960s than today. We’ve been on a long term secular decline in amphetamine usage (along with caffeine, nicotine and other stimulants).
- MontyCarloHall 5y ago
  Prescribed medical use may have been higher, but was overall use higher? Assuming the anecdata in the tweet are true, I just can’t imagine 20-30% of people aged 16-30 were prescribed amphetamines in the 50s. Anyway, given that medical use was probably high enough back in the day that we can draw reliable conclusions about its long-term effects, are there any studies discussing this?

overkill28 5y ago

FYI the source for this data is "a colleague and... every student I asked".

tokai 5y ago
"it was confirmed by every student I asked" Makes it sounds like every student confirmed that 30% of students were taking stims, instead of 30% of students he asked was taking stims.

nso 5y ago

Could anyone here tell us about their experience with "study drugs"? When did this start to become a phenomenon, because it certainly was not in the time and place I studied.

luckylion 5y ago
I can tell you about my experience with modafinil / armodafinil. For the record, I'm 40. I've never been diagnosed with anything, and I wasn't terrible in school, but I was never really able to concentrate for too long. I kind of tumbled into IT after school and it worked for me, if I got 2 hours of concentrated work in per day, I'd get by. A friend of mine had taken modafinil and recommended it to me like three years ago. I tried it and it was extreme, I was able to sit down and just work on stuff and get it done without getting distracted every few minutes. I took it once or twice a week because of all the propaganda surrounding all drugs. I've switch to armodafinil because I found it to work more reliable for me. About two years ago, I started taking armodafinil each & every day, and it's great. I have no negative side-effects that I attribute to it (well, I've gained weight, but weight has been up & down for me my whole life), I sleep well, and it allows me to get into the flow quickly, remain there for hours, and stay productive. I still have the occasional day where I don't get anything done, but it tends to be because I'm subconsciously avoiding some task, and recognizing that helps me get over it. These past two years were easily more productive than the previous 8-10. I wish I had known about it earlier. Looking back, it feels like I've wasted a lot of time before.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  Have you tried adrafinil at any point, or any other nootropic drugs?
  - luckylion 5y ago
    Pretty much only modafinil and then armodafinil. I've taken piracetam for a while (because hey, why not, maybe it does something), but didn't get any noticeable effect. The same goes for supplements, no noticeable effect. I'm far from an expert on any of this. I found something that works very well for me, but I'm not making any claims that it'll work for anyone else. I personally know two others who take modafinil, and while there's some overlap in our experiences, they don't have the same effects I do (they do have effects though, and both take it occasionally, but not regularly).

pclmulqdq 5y ago

Some fraction of this is almost certainly due to taking them as an "academic steroid" rather than having a diagnosis for a condition that needs amphetamines. The abuse of these drugs is a very real problem in schools, but some students legitimately need them so it's hard to come up with a blanket policy. Edit: according to the tweet, all of this is due to recreational or performance enhancing use.

teeray 5y ago
Anecdotally, I remember classmates in college using Adderall as a performance enhancing drug prior to taking exams. You could randomly drug test a subset of students and check against prescriptions, but that might get onerous.
- angrais 5y ago
  Could you not skip those with prescriptions to the stimulants (Adderall, etc) to reduce sample space? Then your method would work well in theory. Of course, in practice, who wants to take a drug test? Certainly not before an exam! It would be chaotic

0x_rs 5y ago

This figure provided is wholly anecdotal and pretty much worthless if not to bring the topic in question. However, it sure is concerning that many consider abusing prescription drugs with possibly severe, long lasting side effects to attempt to improve studying effectiveness (or because of self diagnosed ADHD and the likes..). It may become another drug epidemic, if it's not too late already. Misinformation and dubious claims from people on the internets don't help when the most afflicted group is students trying to improve their grades and performance, desperately at times too.

itsoktocry 5y ago
>This figure provided is wholly anecdotal and pretty much worthless How else would you propose answering the question, besides asking people? Election polling is also "anecdotal".
- potatoman22 5y ago
  I think if we knew more about the sample size and data collection process this could be less anecdotal
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Election polling is not anecdotal. There's a range of things you need to do to turn asking people into data successfully.
- geofft 5y ago
  This is like saying that HTTPS is just security by obscurity because you have to keep the private key secret. The distinction between anecdotes and data is whether you gather the information in a structured and reliable way. I would, in all seriousness, recommend a high school statistics textbook if this is new to you. There's a whole bunch of interesting stuff, including how you don't need a very large sample size to be able to draw conclusions from the data, but you do need to ask your questions in a rigorous way.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Turns out there are a variety of ways to ask people. There’s a whole area of study around it because it’s so hard to get right.

LinuxBender 5y ago

As a side note I do something not as powerful as what is described here but it helps me focus. I combine the non-essential amino acid L-Theanine (from green tea) with caffeine to give me a more calm focused mind. Again, nowhere near as powerful as these drugs but there are also no side effects that I know of. Maybe this could be an alternative for some folks?

riffraff 5y ago

this is in the US? I am old now, but I don't remember pills being this common 10-20 years go in Europe. Does anyone have data across countries?

padastra 5y ago

We should apply a high degree of emotional moderation, if not actual moderation, to outrage-generating anecdata. Sometimes it gives insights into society in a way that data does not capture or for which data is not available (e.g. organized retail theft in SF, or the difficulty of getting an abortion in an otherwise 'legal' state), but oftentimes it just serves to trigger emotional responses and invite conflict (see https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-play-in-three https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-pl...).

fny 5y ago

For anyone who cares, here are the official statistics. > Among U.S. adults, 6.6% (annual average) used prescription stimulants overall; 4.5% used without misuse, 1.9% misused without use disorders, and 0.2% had use disorders. [0] With that as a prior, this anecdata seems far off unless there's something horribly wrong at Stanford. Practically, I'm not sure where kids are getting this stuff to supply amphetamine at a 1-7 rate, unless they're buying straight up meth. I'd be more inclined to believe 25% have taken it once a semester or in their careers, but weekly? [0]: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17091048 https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.20...

bix6 5y ago
Go into a college library around finals week and you will see just how over prescribed and readily available these drugs are.
- gruez 5y ago
  I saw zero prescription stimulent usage/availability during my college education. Granted, I wasn't hanging out at the library too often but if it was really that common that I'd have seen it at least once in the few years I was there. Maybe I was just super unaware.
  - dexwiz 5y ago
    You were unaware.
- david_allison 5y ago
  ~5 years ago in the UK, I used to say that there were more people on drugs in the library than there were in the clubs.
Kydlaw 5y ago
Right from the conclusion of the article that you linked: > Patients who are using their medication for cognitive enhancement or diverting their medication to others present a high risk. I think the Standford population do not fit with the results of your study (that look at the US population in general). These people ARE using these drugs for cognitive enhancement. Now get back to the article conclusion.

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

Apparently we have constructed a society in which everyone, including children, has to spend all day doing things they can't care about without pharmaceutical help. When this last happened under the Qin dynasty, it ended in the Taiping Rebellion, and produced nothing of value except those little canned oranges. I hear pornographic performers are on Viagra too. Meanwhile nobody actually has children, and CO2 PPM keeps going up and up and up. What the fuck is everyone doing? Just going through the motions on pills, while our intrinsic motivations scream at us that we're supposed to be doing something else.

api 5y ago
Nobody planned this. It’s the result of emergent behavior in complex systems and feedback loops. We are still absolutely at the mercy of such forces. They rule us. We sort of understand them (game theory, complexity, evolutionary dynamics) but have yet to come up with any reliable way of controlling them. Totalitarian government force is the best we can do, and it comes with equally large downsides and is itself subject to the same forces over time. It’s a very clunky primitive instrument. I feel like we will not truly become an intelligent species until we are able to flip the table on the complex system in which we are embedded. Until then we are merely very clever animals. True intelligence has yet to evolve on this planet.
- stackbutterflow 5y ago
  Like ants? All for the colony. We would already be on Mars if we behaved like ants but what kind of life is that.
  - fellellor 5y ago
    Not ants, rather societies that can agree on long term, as opposed to short term, economic goals and modify them easily when needed. Most individual humans aren’t able to do this. A society able to achieve it would be truly remarkable. Despotic systems like communism on the other hand only reflect the goals of a chosen few. So by human limitation these goals can never adequately represent the complexity of the governed. Such societies will inevitably degenerate and fall behind. While pure market oriented societies can fall into “activity traps” from which it might be hard for them to climb out of.

Zababa 5y ago

Here's another way of looking at it: if amphetamines or modafinil are performance enhancing and generally safe (or at least, safer than nicotine), why shouldn't people be allowed to take them?

david_allison 5y ago
Same argument for anabolic steroids: assuming they have non-zero harm, if they are effective then there is strong pressure to consume them to succeed when in a competitive environment.

Rd6n6 5y ago

Somebody on twitter who knows somebody who said something is not the reliable source we want for this conclusion

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danShumway 5y ago

If this is actually true, it does seem to be worth asking whether we're doing a good job with how we're structuring secondary education. If someone isn't in a position where they have a medical reason to take this stuff, but they still feel like they need to -- there are a lot of reasons that might be happening, but it also could indicate something may be wrong with the environment they're in, and that should probably be a part of the conversation.

david_allison 5y ago
It's similar to issues with performance enhancing drugs. If your course is graded so the top x% get an A, and people are using drugs to get ahead, then there's pressure to take study drugs to level the playing field with your peers. The end state is everyone taking drugs, and nobody being any better off academically.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Invite friends to fail the course for you?
- luckylion 5y ago
  > The end state is everyone taking drugs, and nobody being any better off academically. Will society be better off though? I mean, the same point can be made for using any new technology. I use a computer so now you need to use a computer to stay competitive. Now we both use a computer, so we're at a stale mate once again. But we're both working much more efficiently on a much higher level, and society is definitely better off even if neither of us has any lasting advantage over the other. Whether that's the case with academics and stimulants, I don't know. Would Paul Erdős have made the same contributions without stimulants? Would we be settling on Mars if everyone optimized for maximum brain output?
  - chii 5y ago
    > the same point can be made for using any new technology. The difference is that some technology don't harm the user, while others do. Drugs tend to harm your biology, usually - that's why taking steroids isn't recommended. So is society willing to sacrifice (some people' s) health for such progress?

ithacaman 5y ago

Oh so that is the "merit" everyone keeps talking about needed to get a FAANG job. I guess Merit the generic name for Adderall.

imtringued 5y ago
The personal responsibility story would also imply that everyone should take performance enhancing medication. After all, it's everyone for themselves.

ramphastidae 5y ago

The title and tweet contents are completely anecdotal (ie false), although the title implies a study was done. I flagged this.

wheelinsupial 5y ago
I suppose I should have read all of the comments before posting my response to another comment. There has been a study on this: 2018: https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/documents/cpds-key-findings-2018.pdf 2015: https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f2e9/documents/cpds-key-findings-report-2015.pdf https://cssl.osu.edu/posts/632320bc-704d-4eef-8bcb-87c83019f... In 2015 18.6% and in 2018 15.9% of respondents admitted to misusing stimulants for non-medical reasons Perhaps adjust the Twitter link to an actual study instead of being removed altogether. It does seem there is something to discuss even if the reported anecdotes are flawed.
- ac29 5y ago
  > In 2015 18.6% and in 2018 15.9% of respondents admitted to misusing stimulants for non-medical reasons I read the 2018 study. It should be noted that the 15.9% who reported using stimulants was for lifetime use. Of those 15.9%, 37% hadn't used them even once in the past year, and 47% had used them 1-9 times in the past year. This is a huge difference from 25% of students using "1-7X/week" like in the tweet. 1-7X a week would put them into the 50+ in the past year category, which in this study was 3% of the 15.9% of lifetime users, or 0.4% overall. Two orders of magnitude less.

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triggercut 5y ago

As an adult recently diagnosed with a marginal attention defficit, who has recently started a perscription of dexies, I really think I'm missing some trick even more now. The only results I've seen so far are extremely subtle (general feelings of lethergy have reduced slightly, generally a little more content / less depressed, can read for longer periods of time during the day without falling asleep) only after weeks of taking concistently, the first few days I didn't notice anything. Nothing like the sudden surge of focus and energy described here after taking a single dose. What quantities are these kids/young adults taking to get this effect?