Just Say Maybe (to Dexies)

Oscar Schwartz needs to know if the drugs actually work

I used approximately 60 micrograms of dexamphetamine, a stimulant commonly prescribed for ADHD, to write this column. I don't have ADHD and I doubt that I would meet criteria for diagnosis. Instead, I take dexamphetamine unprescribed, meaning I am not so much taking dexamphetamine as “dexies”—which is what they morph into when consumed beyond the medical jurisdiction. I get them from a friend who gets them from a guy who buys them from people with a prescription who, for whatever reason, choose not to take their medicine. The dexies come in little white pill bottles with the name ripped off or crossed out. They cost around $5 each and look like sugar pills; teensy little circles that you can pop in your mouth without thinking too much.

I started using them last year, in the months after my daughter was born. There was suddenly a lot less time for work and every minute not spent looking after her had to be used effectively. I was teaching and trying to maintain a freelance writing schedule. I found that the four-hour boost from the drug, which pumps dopamine into the brain, guaranteed that I could predictably work even if I had no sleep. I have been doing this semi-regularly ever since.

I am also, it must be said, a lightweight dexie eater. I rarely take more than 10mg a week, which is as much as a 6-year-old child with an ADHD diagnosis is allowed to use per day, according to some clinical guidelines. I know other unprescribed users—doctors, architects, artists, sex workers, construction workers, public servants—who take far more than I do, munching handfuls of the stuff throughout the week. They’re not quite at Sam Bankman-Fried levels (apparently, he popped pills and had a slow-release stimulant patch on his arm, which gave him the chemical energy required for effective altruism, fraud, and high IQ polyamory). But these people are busy. They have things to do and not enough time. And in this city of minor hustlers and major self-mythologising, a double espresso just won’t cut it anymore. We need something harder, better, faster, stronger.

This is why I was shocked, and slightly amused, when I recently came across a study claiming that for those of us without ADHD, dexies and other stimulants may not be helping us do the work. In fact, they may be hindering.