Elf Sternberg

Usually, JStor isn't a place where I have much truck, but Kate Bielamowicz's America's Workforce Runs On Narcotic Stimulants hits me where I live. She keeps using the term "narcotic," and I'm not sure what she means by it: "narcotic" has two meanings, the first of which means not prescribed, the second of which means opiate-related. Since she's describing prescription stimulants, I can only conclude that her use of the term narcotic is a perjorative: she's trying to link the readers' minds an unwarranted connection between stimulant overprescription and the current opiod addiction crisis, which is claiming a lot of lives.

I can't speak for people who take amphetamines recreationally, or for those who get it off-label.

But I take Dextroamphetamine IR for my ADHD. I have fought my entire freakin' life with this condition, and to say it doesn't occur in adults is to deny my lived experience. I take 5mg, once a day, with breakfast, and it actually allows me to function as a human being. Since I've started taking it, I have actually started to complete a number of important projects that have languished for years.

I have a prescription. It's hard to get that prescription filled; it's a Class-I substance, which means I have to drive to the doctor, have a check-in, get a hand-written prescription, drive to the pharmacy, and wait for them to get it in. I can't fax it, I can't have it called in. I have to be present at each and every step of the transaction and present ID for it.

The number one effect of it has been the alleviation of frustration. I'm not longer constantly mad at myself for being a failure, for being unable to finish things, for being so damned incapable of calming down my hyperactive, overly talkative, ooooh-shiny! brain.

So don't make me angry. I'm pretty pathetic when I'm angry. And Bielamowicz's article seems determined to try and stir up a new moral scare, one that will make me angry.