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Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

(angadh.com)
129 points surprisetalk | 1 comments | 17 Nov 25 14:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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gnatman ◴[17 Nov 25 19:50 UTC] No.45957477[source]▶
Substituted amphetamines were already very popular in the 1950s.
replies(4): >>45957746 #>>45957886 #>>45957901 #>>45961286 #
kragen ◴[18 Nov 25 04:09 UTC] No.45961286[source]▶
Adderall is just regular amphetamine, not even a substituted amphetamine.
replies(1): >>45961560 #
temp0826 ◴[18 Nov 25 05:00 UTC] No.45961560[source]▶
It's a mix of 4 different amphetamines
replies(1): >>45961620 #
kragen ◴[18 Nov 25 05:11 UTC] No.45961620{3}[source]▶
Two, but those are just the enantiomers dextroamphetamine and levoamphetamine. Neither has any atoms extra or missing. It looks like four amphetamines because those two cationic isomers are in salts with two different anions.
replies(1): >>45962275 #
temp0826 ◴[18 Nov 25 07:15 UTC] No.45962275{4}[source]▶
Each enantiomer exhibits different effects so I don't know if that is relevant. (Even if you count dextroamphetamine sulfate and amphetamine sulfate as one, I'd still probably call it 3 because dextroamphetamine saccharate and amphetamine asparate monohydrate (the other two parts of adderall) do indeed have different forumlas).
replies(1): >>45963502 #
1. kragen ◴[18 Nov 25 10:46 UTC] No.45963502{5}[source]▶
If you synthesize amphetamine through the usual pathways, as I understand it, you get a racemic mixture, which is what is normally meant by unqualified "amphetamine", and is very close to Adderall. It's true that levoamphetamine is not really active at all in this context.

As I understand it, the aspartate and saccharate still dissociate in solution. If so, there isn't much of a plausible reason to consider them different drugs. If not, they might act more slowly or not at all.

None of this puts Adderall in the class of substituted amphetamines like MDMA or Desoxyn or exotics like ALEPH: https://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal003...