History and culture of substituted amphetamines
[19] The sympathomimetic properties of amphetamine were unknown until 1927, when pioneer psychopharmacologist Gordon Alles independently resynthesized it and tested it on himself while searching for an artificial replacement for ephedrine.
[22] During World War II, both the Allied and Axis forces experimented with giving amphetamine and methamphetamine to select servicemen for their stimulant and performance-enhancing effects.
[19] A thriving black market in pep pills among long-haul truck drivers in the 1950s and 1960s, linked to long drive times and intense competitive pressures within the industry, contributed to federal efforts by the late 1960s to curtail non-medical use of the substance.
[26] Dr. Andrew Wilson argues that for a significant minority, "amphetamines symbolised the smart, on-the-ball, cool image" and that they sought "stimulation not intoxication [...] greater awareness, not escape" and "confidence and articulacy" rather than the "drunken rowdiness of previous generations.
Dick Hebdige argues that mods used amphetamines to extend their leisure time into the early hours of the morning and as a way of bridging the gap between their hostile and daunting everyday work lives and the "inner world" of dancing and dressing up in their off-hours.
[27] After decades of reported abuse, in 1965 the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) limited amphetamine to prescription use, but non-medical use remained common.
[45] More than 35 million three-milligram doses of Pervitin were manufactured for the German army and air force between April and July 1940; however, this amounts to only three tablets per serviceman a month.
After April 1941 the drug was no longer distributed to servicemen on a mass scale due to its dangerous side effects, and several deaths were attributed to Pervitin.
[50] The USAF banned the use of dextroamphetamine,[51] and due to amphetamines' addiction potential in some people, newer wakefulness-promoting drugs such as modafinil have been seen as possible safer alternatives for military use (as a go pill) in some countries, including the United States.
[52] AMC's Breaking Bad, a crime drama series revolving around the large-scale illicit production of methamphetamine, has been lauded by critics and audiences alike for its realist approach to the portrayal of the international drug trade.
[54] In 1965, beat writer Allen Ginsberg, a member of the hippie counterculture, which was very critical of substituted amphetamines, did an interview with the Los Angeles Free Press[55] in which he commented that "Speed is antisocial, paranoid making, it's a drag... all the nice gentle dope fiends are getting screwed up by the real horror monster Frankenstein speed freaks who are going round stealing and bad-mouthing everybody".
[57] "Speed" not only appears among the inventory of drugs Thompson consumed for what could broadly be defined as recreational purposes but also receives frequent, explicit mention as an essential component of his writing toolkit,[58] such as in his "Author's Note" in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
[59] One afternoon about three days ago [the publishers] showed up at my door with no warning, and loaded about forty pounds of supplies into the room: two cases of Mexican beer, four quarts of gin, a dozen grapefruits, and enough speed to alter the outcome of six Super Bowls.
In the second part of Hubert Selby Jr.'s 1964 novel Last Exit to Brooklyn The Queen Is Dead, Georgette, a transgender prostitute, dies of a drug overdose after the benzedrine-driven party.
Also, Hubert Selby Jr.'s 1978 novel Requiem for a Dream involves one of the main characters, a widowed mother named Sara Goldfarb, getting prescribed amphetamine diet pills in order to lose weight.
The Rolling Stones referenced the drug in their song "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" on the album Sticky Fingers ("Y'all got cocaine eyes / Yeah, ya got speed-freak jive now").
Reed's band The Velvet Underground, a creation of Andy Warhol's Factory Years, was fueled by amphetamines, as well as naming their second album White Light/White Heat after the drug.
In the second scene of the 2011 movie Drive (at 1:50) the auto mechanic shop owner played by Bryan Cranston delivers the following line to the Driver played by Ryan Gosling; "ya look like a zombie kid are yuh gettin any sleep, can I offer you some benzedrine, dexedrine, caffeine, nicotine" mirroring the title of the Jerry Reed song "Benzedrine, Caffeine, Nicotine, (Wish Me Luck)."
"We want to create a level playing field for all competitors and maintain the integrity of the sport," said James Lampkin, vice president of professional gaming at ESL.
In the United States, amphetamine is classified by the DEA as a Schedule II controlled substance, which carries serious civil, criminal, and collateral consequences under federal law.
"[77] Members of this drug-based subculture, which consists almost entirely of homosexual male methamphetamine users located in San Francisco, will typically meet up through internet dating sites and have sex.
Crystal methamphetamine (most commonly, colloquially known as "crystal meth" or "ice") and free base forms of amphetamine are sufficiently volatile substances and this allows them to be vaporized by high heat (i.e. using a lighter) and the fumes are inhaled (or "smoked") from glass paraphernalia known as base pipes (most commonly, colloquially referred to as "bubble", "bowl", "globe" or simply "pipe").
[85] The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealed that smoking is an increasingly favored route of administration among methamphetamine users in Australia.
[89] A 2017 study involving fifty six female clients were interviewed by Nicholas E. Goeders of Louisiana State University suggests that the subjective rush from recreational methamphetamine use is proportional to the rate at which the blood level of the drug increases.
[91] Goeders concluded that "Without a doubt methamphetamine, when injected in "sufficient" purity and dose, can produce a subjective physiological response in women that is indistinguishable from an orgasm.
[94] Nicknames for the routes of administration within some methamphetamine communities include a "butt rocket", a "booty bump", "potato thumping", "turkey basting", "plugging", "booty-whaap", "boofing", "suitcasing", "hooping", "keistering", "shafting", "bumming", and "shelving" (vaginal).
[98] Methylamine is crucial to all such methods and is produced from the model airplane fuel nitromethane, or formaldehyde and ammonium chloride, or methyl iodide with hexamine.
[101] The methamphetamine produced by this method is racemic, consisting partly of the less-desired levomethamphetamine isomer,[102] though separation of the two enantiomeric forms through selective recrystallization of the tartrate salt can occur in order to isolate the more active dextromethamphetamine.
Short-term exposure to high concentrations of chemical vapors that exist in black-market methamphetamine laboratories can cause severe health problems and death.
[125] The 2006 National Drug Threat Assessment, produced by the Department of Justice, found "decreased domestic methamphetamine production in both small and large-scale laboratories.
