Meth on the street: $40
Meth when they sing the name of the pill to you in a fancy commercial: $180
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Meth is not ~~sold as a prescription drug~~ advertised in commercials, so I can only assume you're referencing Adderall (amphetamine), but the difference between them is like the difference between how flammable wood and gasoline are.
Edit: as others have pointed out, I was wrong with that statement about meth not being sold as a prescription drug. However, the original point still stands. People often conflate "amphetamine" with "methamphetamine", and this is dangerous for people who are prescribed Adderall and the like because, as long as the two are conflated, then people will shame those who need that prescription. This is a real problem that actually happens.
Meth is sold as a prescription drug under the brand name Desoxyn. It’s schedule 2 in the US
Crazy. People refer to Adderall and similar as "prescription meth" extremely often, so that is why I said that. But clearly I was technically wrong, but I think the main point stands because of how people conflate "methamphetamine" with "amphetamine".
Meth is less illegal than marijuana. Gotta keep the really bad drugs off the street amirite
🎵 Meth meth meth meth Methadriiiine🎵
Ask your doctor about Methadrine today
Methylphenidate (concerta/ritalin), methamphetamine (desoxyn), dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine), Amphetamine (evekeo), pseudoepinephrine (cough syrup)
Desoxyn is the only one there is "meth". I am amazed it's an actual prescription drug and I concede I was wrong.
But the others you list are not the same at all.
They're all very chemically similar and will show hot for meth in a drug test. They all have similar effects for neurotypical people, and street meth has been used as a much cheaper but very unsafe and illegal alternative for the ADHD medications I listed. Street meth is derived from pseudoepinephrine.
Compare it to thc; the illegal substance as defined by the 2018 farm bill is THC-9. There's the legal substances THC-8, THC-10, HHC, THC-O, etc. All of them are technically not the illegal substance, but will have the exact same or extremely similar effects.
I don't think they are as similar as you make them out to be, and I'd appreciate sources for those claims.
More importantly, I think you're missing the point. "Meth", the illegal drug, is still different from the prescription drug form and is orders of magnitude stronger than Adderall et al. These should not be conflated, even as a joke, because it does serious damage to how people view medication that people need.
All of these are based an a hypothetical 'generic thc' that we can use as a base. delta 9 has a double bond on carbon 9 and 10, delta 8 has a double bond on carbon 8 and 9, delta 10 has a double bond on carbon 10 and 11. They are all so closely related that you'd probably still get a passing grade in high school chemistry for simply being able to identify any of them as thc. THC-O is identical to delta 9, except it has an additional acetate. HHC has no double bonds on the carbon ring, and instead has additional hydrogens. Delta-8 is roughly 70% as strong as delta-9, HHC has similar strength to delta-8, delta-10 is roughly 75% as effective as delta-9, and THC-O is roughly 120% as effective as delta-9 (though lasts for a shorter time) when it comes to effects. They all show up hot on a drug test for cannabis, because drug tests check the metabolites and they are all metabolized the same way.
How's an anecdote to start for Concerta? My fiancee takes it for ADHD, 54mg extended release and low dose Ritalin as PRN (though she rarely takes it). She's also a nurse, so has to take regular drug tests for work and when switching jobs. It always comes back hot for meth metabolites. Concerta is in the same amphetamine class as methamphetamine, though it has a lower risk for addiction. I'm not a pharmacist, so I apologize for a lack of detail on these drugs and how they work.
I wasn't asking about the THC stuff, since that's not really relevant to the conversation, besides your original analogy.
I don't think being in the "same class" means they are the same strength. Also, being "chemically similar" means little. H20 and H202 are "chemically similar" as well, but you would die if you drank a glass of the latter.
'chemically similar' as in pharmacology, not chemistry. Like I said, I'm not a pharmacist so any explanation would be insufficient. Every drug source I can find compares methamphetamine, methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine, and amphetamine to each other. They all also produce the same metabolites. You're technically correct when you say they aren't meth, but I specifically brought up thc because I'm drawing comparisons to why it doesn't actually matter; to the average person it's all meth.
That's the problem. It's not meth. People who are prescribed Adderall, concerta, or whatever should not be treated like they're "basically doing meth". That is what happens when we keep letting people think it's the same.
Why does this distinction matter for the average person? Street meth and concerta are both equally bad for neurotypical people.
Wut. They are not equally bad at all. "Street meth" is objectively worse. And therein lies the problem. You're very confident in your understanding of these drugs and you're treating them as they are the same. When people do that, they also associate drug addicts and everything negative about drugs to the notion of taking prescribed ADHD medicine.
"chemically similar"
Ffs, chirality is just one example of chemicals that are "similar" but that can have very different effects. Thalidimide is one example where a molecule was useful for morning sickness in pregnant women, but its mirror image molecule caused birth defects.
"I'm lowering my A1C, jardiance 👯 " how'd that get in there brain?
Article 85.4 from the Law 29/2006 about warranties and rational use of medicines and health products (Spain):
When the prescription is made by active ingredient, the pharmacist will dispense the lowest priced medicine from its homogeneous group and, in the case of equality, the corresponding generic medicine or biosimilar medicine.
No idea if it's a law, but in Finland pharmacist is always offering a cheaper brand even if doctor has written a specific drug name
Might just be my experience too idk
Same in the US unless it's marked as not substitutable.
Add a little caffeine! People love it.
Is that the runescape font?
Or even sometimes just change the indication, like when Eli-Lilly re-patented Prozac as Sarafem because it could be used to treat premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).
Same drug, but they could keep it as brand-name for some patients.
Yep. This is why I've been having panic attacks all month.
Has Vyvanse finally gotten a legal generic?
They have!
Drugmakers began shipping generic versions of Vyvanse on August 31, according to Reuters.
https://www.additudemag.com/vyvanse-generics-adhd-medication-fda-approved/
Have to get my medication daily, paying 10 euros a month and that stuff is expensive af. You see, euros, not dollars.
Top picture: medicine prices in Europe.
Bottom picture: prices in the US for the same medicine.
Or keep the top and replace the bottom picture with 404: Medicine Not Found, because the FDA couldn't be fucked to approve it
So I get several hundred dollars from a random woman if I take the same molecule with a fancy brand name?
But think of all the doctors and pharmacists benefitting from not prescribing the generic.
Hi I am a pharmacist.
We do not benefit from the brand name. Pharma does. Sometimes the PBMs (middle men between insurance company and pharmacy) paying for it do as they get kickbacks. Sometimes they pay below the cost of the drug to the pharmacy despite them knowing perfectly well no pharmacy can get drugs that cheap. Branded drugs are not good for pharmacies.
Here, you get prescribed the non generic but the government subsidies only apply to the cheapest version available at a specific pharmacy.
So if a pharmacy only has the non generic, that's the one you get heavily discontinued (or free, depending on how much you already spent that year on prescription drugs), but if they have some cheaper generic version the subsidies only cover that one (you can pay the difference and get the non generic if you want).
So it's pretty rare that you actually get the non generic drug unless that pharmacy just happens to be out, or if your drugs are still under patent.
I am pretty sure our government also negotiates prescription drug prices, which keeps prices down (I guess mostly for them, since it's so heavily subsidized.)
It's the insurance companies (Specifically the Pharmacy Benefit Managers) who generally mandate the brand name over the generics. Prescribers might write the brand name on the prescription, but most (if not all) states have laws that allow automatic substitution to the generic.
Pharmacists (Who generally do not do any prescribing*) and Prescribers don't get any benefits from prescribing brand names. If they do, they're likely breaking anti-kickback laws.
(*There are clinics and states that allow pharmacists to prescribe medications. In Oregon for example, retail pharmacists can prescribe birth control. Or a clinic may have pharmacists reviewing and adjusting a patient's warfarin therapy)
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