They definitely increase energy levels. A person can stay up for days on them. They are an unwise and partial substitute for sleep but a substitute nonetheless. Like you mention, a large part of what they do is change intrinsic motivation, not intelligence. When you feel "charged" with energy, it is hard to oppose doing intellectual work. Amphetamines are pure energy. And intellect loves pure energy...so does physical work. But its not for free. Amphetamines decrease circulation..they caused Peyronies Disease for me..and I used to take them all the time in college with no issues. Age always brings the true nature of bad habits to bear.

I really hope people don’t read these posts and think oh man I gotta get aderall because everybody is on it. (For people that don’t actually have some serious issue studying.) if you managed to get into a good college without using aderall something tells me you already have the ability to focus very well. I also think this type of post will bring out a large fraction of the small amount of people doing it and make it look substantial.. I for one agree that substantial regular sleep and finding a job that you like, and holding yourself accountable to achieving the goals you set for yourself are far more powerful than temporarily pounding out 1000 lines of code. I have met tons of people over the years who would finish homework before others and half of the time they would be bored and not sure what to do with themselves and end up sort of always confused about what they want to do with themselves and not very passionate vs. the people studying away in the lab frustrated that they don’t “get it” end up finding a love for the material fairly often when they suddenly start “getting it”.. it’s not to say that one day there won’t be a “make you smarter” drug, but I doubt strongly that a stimulant like aderall is it.. more likely it’s equivalent to drinking a small amount of coffee every 15 mins over the period of a long work day. In my case I don’t take anything like aderall and have achieved plenty and been able to work very long and intense hours through a variety of techniques I use. For example, don’t drink all of your coffee right away in the morning, drink it more slowly. When you are on a roll don’t go to lunch or grab coffee with your work mate, just keep trucking. Visualize the feeling you will have when you finish the thing you are trying to get done at the end of the day and stay focused on that when you start to get distracted. Get up and walk around for 60 seconds to get some blood pumping. Kneel down on your knees instead of sitting for say 5 mins. When you get interrupted by a co worker come up with a nice way of saying that you are in the middle of something. Change locations if you are losing interest and focus in what you are working on. Listen to some music without words to help get you into a zone. Come up with a story to tell yourself about why your thing you are working on is important. Think about what food or reward you will give yourself when you get something done that you think is a good checkpoint. Basically my point is that if you come up a set of methods that help you become successful rather than relying upon a drug then you can essentially persuade your brain to keep investing time and energy into your goal and is more resilient long term. It requires you to build up these skills to train yourself to be able to do these techniques, — no silver bullet.

I agree with you. If anything I believe the amount of people these drugs assist is actually a tiny fraction.