The Amphetamine Ouroboros
Return of the Round-up: what I'm thinking/reading about ADHD this week
So, I’ve been spiraling (in a good way). I consider this newsletter to be my public creative practice, a proof of concept for the ideas I’m exploring as I’m exploring them, critiques in both content and form itself. Which is to say, my structure worked until it unravelled and spun out; now it re-accretes.
Okay I’ll stop being poetic: I’m going to return to doing round-ups on the weekend for paid subs, but a bit less like essays, and a bit more like, here’s a scrapbook of my intellectual week. (My definition of “week” being flexible, bc time is fake.) Here’s some bits of things, some links to stuff, some half-formed thoughts. Maybe you can help me form them more fully in the comments.
This compost pile of idea scraps includes:
some musings at the one-year mark of the Adderall shortage
“the first description of ADHD in history” and what everyone seems to miss about it
a selection of links from the 458 tabs currently open on my phone
Free posts will continue as my energy allows, but if you want to follow my thought train every week, do subscribe:
On The First Anniversary Of The Adderall Shortage
Last month Abigail Spanberger, a congresswoman from Virginia’s 7th district, wrote a letter to the FDA and the DEA asking for answers to a series of questions about mixed amphetamine salts. The letter was signed by reps from 14 other states, and it says they’re concerned about the lack of stimulants at the beginning of another school year:
Without the necessary medications, students struggle to learn and regulate their emotions, contributing to the mental health crisis facing children. This is unacceptable.
They note that in August, the FDA and DEA wrote to drug companies asking them to fill their allotted quotas, which they say were only 70% full last year, leaving 1 billion doses “that they could have produced but did not make or ship” despite there being a shortage.
I do think this is a huge problem, and though I don’t take stims anymore, I have been experiencing this shortage vicariously through my loved ones who do. A lot of people rely on amphetamine salts to work jobs and do school now, and I’m really fascinated by a couple things here:
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