America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008)

Re:America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008) by jjgreen on Friday December 13, 2019 @06:16PM (#21786518)

When Ronald Graham, a concerned friend and fellow mathematician, bet him [Erdos] $500 that he couldn’t stay off his drug of choice for a month, Erdos accepted and easily won the challenge. When the 30 days was up, Erdos said to Graham, “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.” Erdos resumed taking amphetamines and did so for every day of his life until his death 17 years later.

https://turningpointtreatmentcenter.com/why-are-intelligent-...

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Re:America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008) by desks_dos on Saturday December 14, 2019 @11:39AM (#21790343)

Does this amphetamine use constitute abuse? Drug abuse is typically defined as use that creates negative effects to the person's social and/or personal health. It seems to me his drug use gave him the ability to work at a high level and allowed him to derive self-worth from that work. He was also able to discontinue the drug use at will. Even if there were some negative health side-effects, I wonder if abuse should be the term used here.

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Re:America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008) by LocalH on Sunday December 15, 2019 @11:53AM (#21797159)

"Use" vs "abuse" is generally an ideological choice, not really related to the actual use of a substance. If someone uses the word "abuse" in situations like that, it's clear that they are a prohibitionist, to whom all use is abuse.

Of course, egregious examples can very well be classed as abuse. But if someone classifies examples like the one you reference as abuse, then they're a prohibitionist, plain and simple.

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Re:America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008) by philwelch on Saturday December 14, 2019 @01:21AM (#21788138)

I wonder if Erdos just had undiagnosed adult ADHD and just happened to have been unintentionally treating it.

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