I think of this stuff when folks say “trust the science!”. It’s all trust the science until that science conflicts with some broader agenda of a federal agency or a doctor’s whims about risks to their license.
Medicine really has a bad problem with groupthink. To get the best healthcare you have to both trust physicians and be critical of them.
Then the DEA seems to consider stimulants as a moral failing.
I’ve been off Concerta for 3-4 years now because it was so difficult to keep my productivity up when the pharmacies near me ran out due to the unpublished extra-legal DEA caps on stimulants.
Luckily even have been on Concerta has helped me learn how to manage my ADHD a bit better. It also gave me the chance to heal some of the worst traumas due to undiagnosed ADHD.
I think "trust the science" is a stupid slogan anyway. Not all science is equally well proven. Who represents the "science" when scientific opinion i divided? Even when there is a consensus there are plenty of examples when a strong consensus has been wrong.
The end result is that i tends to make the public regard science as something that they are told by experts, so then it becomes a matter of which experts they trust. This ultimately undermines trust in science because some expert opinions turn out to be wrong.
We really need better science communication, which will not happen when the media want sensation, politicians want spin, and the public believe either the media or ChatGPT or some random nutcase on Tiktok.
> (which has no physical diagnosis criteria, just a subjective checklist),
An ADHD diagnosis is not just subjective checklist. There's little regulation, but in order to get federal ADA accommodations in gradschool I had to get a diagnosis that took weeks. First I had a professional IQ exam which took 6 hours and highlighted that certain sub-scores were low indicative of ADHD, in particular working memory. Then there was testing with reflexes and attention regulation via computer testing. Finally there wad several counseling sessions reviewing childhood patterns and history, life and work impacts, etc.
Also you can scan ADHD brains with fMRI and see the differences.
> Why in the world would anybody be motivated to suppress the widespread usage of adderall for ADHD
Similar reasons as to why you're throwing shade at ADHD diagnosis criteria and hinting at that ADHD is fake. Maybe it's just ableism or puritanical views against the idea of stimulants.
Perhaps moral aspersions on a group of people whose symptoms look like they're just lazy. This is the most common in my experience.
> Who would be bribing them?
Some of the worse oppressors are those who do it because they believe they're doing it for your good. Perhaps beaurocrats enjoying the power in their fiefdom.
> Do you think that the DEA gets to make decisions about drug policy,
Well yes, especially before the Chevron doctrine was overturned recently by the Supreme Court [1]. Even Congress doesn't know what the DEA set their quotas for schedule 2 drugs at [2].
> or that they all belong to some secret anti-adderall church?
> Maybe it's just ableism or puritanical views against the idea of stimulants
It was very widely abused in my college days. There was also a (IMHO justified) concern over whether it was being over-prescribed as a way to deal with problematic behavior in children, rather than actually putting in the effort as a parent or medical professional to get to the root of the issue.
With that said, I do know people who genuinely have either ADD or ADHD, and who struggle to function without some form of pharmacological help in addition to therapy. Limiting their access to stop others from abusing it is unethical, whatever a cost/ benefit analysis might say.
I found the stronger stimulants robbed me of joy in life, I became very productive though. A good worker. Wellbutrin prevents my catastrophic thinking and feelings of being overwhelmed. I still miss meetings and procrastinate, but I also still whistle a tune while watching the sunlight pass through the leaves of a tree. That stopped on the strong stuff. All that anectdata aside, some people need the strong stuff, but many more are using it to fit perfectly into a world that no one should have to fit into. Antidepressants cause a similar problem, where people put up with situations they shouldn't. Just because the stimulants allow you to handle a certain amount of stress or work, doesn't mean you should.
> There's little regulation, but in order to get federal ADA accommodations in gradschool I had to get a diagnosis that took weeks.
That's because you wanted to get something from via the ADA. If you just go to a website, do a questionnaire with _very_ leading questions (that you can do anonymously several times to make sure you get the desired result), book a meeting, and then you can walk out of your meeting with a prescription. Pending a mandatory drugs test, of course.
Ask me how I know. And I actually _do_ have clinically diagnosed ADHD, so I didn't need to fake anything.
There's absolutely people who don't believe in any psychiatric medication, either for religious or just pseudo-scientific reasons. Look at how harshly the United States has treated marijuana users compared to smokers and alcoholics. There's moral and social judgement associated with different substances which is contingent on history and not based in fact.
Medicine really has a bad problem with groupthink. To get the best healthcare you have to both trust physicians and be critical of them.
Then the DEA seems to consider stimulants as a moral failing.
I’ve been off Concerta for 3-4 years now because it was so difficult to keep my productivity up when the pharmacies near me ran out due to the unpublished extra-legal DEA caps on stimulants.
Luckily even have been on Concerta has helped me learn how to manage my ADHD a bit better. It also gave me the chance to heal some of the worst traumas due to undiagnosed ADHD.