Concerta and Ritalin contain methylphenidate, not amphetamine. This is correctly stated elsewhere in the article, so I don't know why they're conflated here.
> In one of these rooms, Ascent’s founder and CEO — Sudhakar Vidiyala, Meghana’s father — points to a hulking unit that he says is worth $1.5 million. It’s used to produce time-release Concerta tablets with three colored layers, each dispensing the drug’s active ingredient at a different point in the tablet’s journey through the body.
Sort of; see "System Components and Performance" in [0]. There's an overcoat which contains an initial dose of methylphenidate that dissolves quickly. Under that, a three-layer core: two drug layers and one pump layer for an osmotic-controlled delivery system [1]. As the pill is processed through the body and into the gut, water is absorbed into the pump layer through a semipermeable membrane which causes the pump layer to gradually expand, pushing methylphenidate from the two drug layers out through a laser-drilled hole over time. It's a cool little mechanism.
[0] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/02...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic-controlled_release_ora...
I mean that ship has already sailed in the form of the "methamphetamine epidemic" but just to be pedantic
I disagree. The OP is correct in calling out the bogus languge used in the article.
Saying the difference between Adderall (an amphetamine) and Ritalin (methylphenidate) doesn't matter because they both just boost dopamine is like saying it doesn't matter whether you turn up the volume on your speaker by using a remote or by walking over and pressing a button. Yes, both methods make the music louder, but how they do it is different.
Adderall pushes more dopamine out, while Ritalin makes sure the dopamine that's already there sticks around longer. This matters because, depending on someone's unique brain chemistry and health, one method might be better for them than the other. It's not just about the end result (more dopamine); it's about how you get there and what side effects might come along for the ride. Just like some people prefer the remote for convenience, doctors and patients might prefer one medication over the other based on how well it works for them and how it makes them feel.
There's no such sympathy for people unable to function without their meds, sadly.
There's never a smoking gun. And this should be the big takeaway for a lot of people: if you're looking for smoking guns you'll find them everywhere. But if you're looking for killers, they hide in the shadows. Sure, there are some where you do clearly see them standing over the body in clear daylight with the smoking gun in hand and the dead still warm. But that is far more rare. The best way for these people to hide in the shadows is to make it difficult to distinguish good and bad. To create the shadows and fog. The reason this is often easy is because the good and right actions are nuanced and considerate of complexity.
Like truth and lies, truth has a lower bound in complexity but lies do not, they can be infinitely simple. We humans love simplicity and that's what they exploit. It's unfortunate but if everything was half as simple as we pretend they are, we wouldn't have 90% of the problems that exist in the world. We live in a complex world and humans have been solving problems for thousands of years, it's pretty reasonable that the vast majority of simple issues have been solved. So if you want truth, be wary of simplicity.
If you take a look at the comments on this thread I think you'll see there's also a whole group of people who don't use the medication but have quite strong feelings about whether or not it should be used, why it's used, whether or not life is fair because people use it, etc.
Wouldn't be much of a stretch to infer that the author could also be in that camp.
> But the company has acknowledged that it committed infractions. For example, orders struck from 222s must be crossed out with a line and the word cancel written next to them. Investigators found two instances in which Ascent employees had drawn the line but failed to write the word.
(Wean off those without genuine disability, who are using the drug as a performance enhancer.)
That's a dystopian concept I've never seen explored anywhere.
Except sports, where the government steps in and makes sure that doesn't happen. ;)
I can also confirm the diminishing returns and will even state that if I take instant dosages around what people say they do, I'm highly non-productive again. Finding the right dosage level and schedule is still a challenge and varies day to day. There's far too common a myth that you just pop 20mg of Adderall and you can focus for 10hrs straight. Maybe that's true for some people, or maybe even for just people without ADHD, but certainly not true for me. For me it is just like turning down the volume on an alarm.
[1] - https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-life-expectancy-video/#:~:t....
Also, a lot of people with mental health issues can survive without their medication, it can significantly decrease their quality of life or ability to function.
I can survive without my ADHD being treated but I can't work. Fortunately for me, I am on a different type of medication so this shortage doesn't affect me, but I can see what's happening to my coworkers. My team is going to lose people due to this bullshit.
Can I survive? Absolutely. But without it, I am a zombie; a complete shell of myself. Even with concerns over long term side effects, the tradeoff isn't worth it for me.
Why are your coworkers so committed to this work if it suits them so poorly? Are they really unable to perform any work without a drug?
It's a little wild that people would sooner see themselves as "ill" and in need of $xx/mo of side effects and shortages for the rest of their lives than think that maybe the expectations they've put on themselves aren't right.
Maybe the work is not a good suit for them. Maybe their lives are structured poorly. Maybe your whole industry or social class is broken and is demanding more from people than they can deliver without drugs. A shortage is a really good opportunity to look more closely at those possibilities, especially the last one.
Some figures highly esteemed for their talent are noted for extreme focus and diligence, but rarely are these people especially well rewarded with money or comfort. They just get pointed at and receive some "oohs" and "ahhs" while feeling pretty alienated and seeming pretty unbalanced. It's not something most feel themselves aspiring to and it's definitely not what society has set itself up to reward.
Society seems to reward people who get about as much done as they say they can, consistently, on something useful, while not being too unpleasant to be around.
There's plenty of room for neurodivergent people in that society, even without stimuants.
I can honestly say that I wouldn't have been able to hold down a serious professional career without it - ADHD is a very real thing that some people have to deal with, and its effects can be crippling to life outcomes.
I don't like the way stimulant medications feel to actually take, and the long-term health effects do worry me a bit, but it makes it possible for me to live something significantly closer to a normal life than I would ever be able to manage without them. Really can't overstate how transformational it's been for me.
My only regret is waiting until my thirties to get diagnosed, I feel like so much of my potential was wasted academically and career-wise.
So yes.
