>And these practices are in a way unfair against the rest of us workers!

This raises interesting philosophical questions about work in general. If work is inherently valuable, isn't anything that enhances it a good thing (assume lack of side effects for simplicity)? Is it "unfair" if a doctor/scientist/programmer uses a product to be more productive? Very few of us are formally competitive athletes, and special rules apply to those of us who are. I think it's unfair that some people can afford secretaries, accountants, editors, private schools, etc., those seem much less fair than ADHD medicine.

One of my childhood heroes, the great mathematician Paul Erdos, was a famous amphetamine user, does that mean the wonderful contributions he made to our understanding of the universe are "unfair"?

The problem is that instead of taking each individual as contributing what they can, with everyone surviving as society runs at peak productivity, our current society makes individuals compete with each-other to survive, and entirely discards the potential contributions of those who are not "selected". So productivity-boosting drugs become socially problematic, since they rig the competition.

The real issue is they don't improve your performance much at all. A recent study demonstrated people simply feel as if they are performing better, however its a false perception. Additionally the drugs won't give you that "buzzed motivated" feeling for long. You have to keep upping the dose and upping the dose, and people end up addicted and in a worse spot than when they started.

Have you ever taken a therapeutic extended-release dose of amphetamine? The idea of amphetamine only making you feel like you're performing better is hilarious to anyone that's ever taken it. Kind of like someone telling you that marijuana is actually inert. Yeah, whatever.

The drugs will give you an effect as long as you keep your tolerance down.

You don't take them every day. You need off days. Most people I know are prescribed 20mg Adderall XRs or 50mg Vyvanse caps and only up their dose if they want to save money by splitting pills.

Fair is hard to tease out in situations like this, but not everyone is able to use Adderall and get the same effects; those with ADHD just come up to normal, and there are some folks who will have very negative reactions.

What method would you propose to ensure those who did not get the net positive effects of a wonder drug were not negatively affected in the work force?

You make some good points. Re: your question,

Realistically: People with severe handicaps can't compete in major league sports, and society makes no serious effort to "fix" this. If someone's brain chemistry makes them unable to compete in a field for whatever reason, they shouldn't make that field their dayjob.

Pipe dream: See eli_gottlieb's insightful comment. Basic income maybe?

> People with severe handicaps can't compete in major league sports, and society makes no serious effort to "fix" this.

Given that 99%+ of the population can not participate in major league sports, it's harder to see this as an imbalance.

A better example would be the physically handicapped. Is it OK to exclude someone in a wheelchair from a software development job when they are equal to other applicants in every other way? How about someone who is blind?

Erdös started taking benzedrine in 1971, long after he had become one of the most prolific mathematicians of all time with ~40 years of work behind him. I suspect he was productive in spite of the speed, as someone that brilliant with that many years of learning in their head would still be incredibly brilliant impaired.

> I think it's unfair that some people can afford secretaries, accountants, editors, private schools, etc., those seem much less fair than ADHD medicine.

Yes, but between two people who are otherwise equal (in status), the one using the drug has an unfair advantage.

> One of my childhood heroes, the great mathematician Paul Erdos, was a famous amphetamine user, does that mean the wonderful contributions he made to our understanding of the universe are "unfair"?

To his peers his actions may have been certainly unfair. The least he could have done was disclose in his publications that his results were obtained while using these drugs.

>Yes, but between two people who are otherwise equal (in status), the one using the drug has an unfair advantage.

Okay. Between two people who are otherwise equal (in drugs), the one with the more servants has an unfair advantage.

>The least he could have done was disclose in his publications that his results were obtained while using these drugs

Should the same go for caffeine?

Well, Erdos was the guy who came up with the definition of a mathematician as something that converts caffeine to theorems. He also claimed that without the speed he could produce no math at all, so for him it was essential, not just an enhancement.

After he already started taking it. Thats the problem. You become psychologically dependent quickly. What starts as "it really helps me with my work" ends as "I cannot work at ALL without it."

> And thus these practices disturb statistics about the true prevalence of ADHD.

Maybe in the future doctors would say "You have no prior history with ADHD, so we'll have to run a long check to see if you really need these meds". Then of course parents will start getting ADHD perscriptions for their children when they're young, so they will have a history... and we come full circle.