Talk:Adderall

The lead

The lead of this article isn't really adequate. I don't really have the time to write/expand it at the moment, but if anyone is interested, it could use another paragraph or two to (adequately) summarize the article. Refer to WP:LEAD if interested. The lead of amphetamine might be useful as well since the articles now have several identical sections - I've imported every relevant section from that article. Seppi333 (talk) 10:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 17:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Transclusions

I've transcluded as many sections as I think are necessary to keep this page up-to-date. I'd like to keep this page a little more accessible to the layperson than the amphetamine article, so I don't intend to transclude the more technical sections like pharmacology. I'd appreciate feedback related to the section transclusions, so feel free to post it here if you have any for me. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 20:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Interactions

According to the citation, a basic GI pH (such as that caused by H2 blockers or PPIs) increases the absorption rate of Adderall, and a basic urinary pH causes decreased excretion. As far as I can tell, the current statement written is incorrectly.98.116.134.143 (talk) 12:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC)Mike

 Fixed - Thanks for pointing that out. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 18:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Changing Title Back to "Amphetamine Mixed Salts"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a general consensus against renaming the article

---

@Seppi333: @Boghog: @Callanecc: @Jmh649: I'm the one who got this page moved from "Adderall" to "Amphetamine mixed salts" a few months ago. I wasn't made aware that this change was being reverted. I very strongly believe that it should be moved back for the following reasons:

• There was no consensus and, had I been notified, there may have been a consensus against it. Callanecc suggested to wait for consensus but that advice wasn't followed.
• In most countries, including the United States, amphetamine salts are available as a generic and required to by law to be filled as a generic unless the patient demands the brand.
• Seppi333 wrote "'Dextroamphetamine saccharate and amphetamine aspartate monohydrate and dextroamphetamine sulfate and amphetamine sulfate' per PHARMMOS? Personally, I prefer "Adderall" to a 12 word name.", but those obviously aren't the only two options (we were using another, more reasonable option then).
• When filled as a generic, the medication is labeled "amphetamine salts" or some variant of that.
• The other wiki sites can be changed to the generic name, and they should, considering that it makes more sense.
• I don't know of a single example of a medication currently available as a generic (and primarily filled as a generic) that is listed under its brand name.
• Because of generics laws, pharmaceutical brand names like that are going to become decreasingly relevant.
• Ritalin is probably the best precedent. The brand name "Ritalin" is probably more ubiquitous than "Adderall", and "methylphenidate" is surely more arcane than "amphetamine" (or some variant thereof). Regardless, the article is titled methylphenidate.

Exercisephys (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I would support seeing it moved back. We really need to stay with more generic names. This ref refers to it as a mixed salt [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:24, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose : Amphetamine mixed salts is not a generic name for this drug. There is/was no citation anywhere on the page that this name is even in use. There is no basis for using this as a common name. Might as well rename other drug pages to some pseudo-generic name if this is used as a precedent. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 21:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. WP:PHARMOS advises that drug article names be named after the International Nonproprietary Name (INN) if one exists. However no INN has been assigned to Adderall. One possible fall back is the United States Adopted Name (USAN), but no USAN has been assigned to Adderall either.

There are no generally agreed upon generic names for Adderall. Ones that are in common use include:

• amphetamine/dextroamphetamine mixed salts (rxlist.com)
• dextroamphetamine mixed salts of a single-entity amphetamine product (FDA)
• dextroamphetamine saccharate, amphetamine aspartate monohydrate, dextroamphetamine sulfate and amphetamine sulfate (dailymed)

The only name given above that is precise is the last one, but this name is far too long to be used as an article title.

Wikipedia article naming criteria include naturalness (one that readers are likely search for), precision (unambiguously identify the article's subject), and conciseness (title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject). "Adderall" fulfills all of the criteria whereas "ampethamine mixed salts" fulfills none. Boghog (talk) 00:54, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I find Boghog's rationale the best representative of WP naming policy. While I strongly agree with Doc James that we should stick with generic names, in this particular case that doesn't (currently) work. -- Scray (talk) 02:35, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. User:Exercisephys wrote: I don't know of a single example of a medication currently available as a generic (and primarily filled as a generic) that is listed under its brand name. Heroin is a good counter-example. Also, I agree with User:Boghog and User:Seppi333 KMeyer (talk) 19:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

@KMeyer: This issue has long been settled, but just because I found your statement a little ridiculous, I'd like to point out that heroin is almost exclusively a black-market narcotic. Amphetamine salts, on the other hand, are exclusively prescription because who the hell would bother synthesizing this specific mixture of enantiomers and salts. Exercisephys (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

@Exercisephys: I'm not sure I see your point -- Adderall also plays a role as a black-market narcotic. Heroin is the trademark name for (what is generically known as) diamorphine, and yet Diamorphine redirects to Heroin. "Amphetamine Mixed Salts" is so vague it probably does describe (impure) black-market speed or meth. KMeyer (talk) 13:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@KMeyer: My point is that heroin exists mainly as a completely black-market drug, including manufacture. While it's technically available by prescription in some European countries, it isn't really a prescription drug anymore. Also, "amphetamine mixed salts" is only used to refer to this formulation, not street speed. I can promise that you won't find a meth dealer on a street-corner offering you "amphetamine mixed salts".

@Exercisephys: Not sure how you conclude that "it isn't really a prescription drug anymore" after preceding the statement with "it's technically available by prescription in some European countries." Doublethink? You will absolutely find people selling Adderall on black markets, and they name it "adderall" and not "amphetamine mixed salts." If black market naming is good enough to say low-quality speed is not named ampheta-mixed-salts, it's good enough to say adderall is named adderall. This discussion is getting pointless as the rename request is denied.

• Oppose "Adderall" is what people are searching for, it's the common name, and unlike most other drugs, there is no encyclopedia-title-friendly generic name. Methylphenidate is on par with "amphetamine", but "amphetamine mixed salts" and any variation thereof is atrociously awkward. In addition, in my experience in a hospital environment, doctors refer to it as adderall almost exclusively. Contrast this to something like diazepam, which is referred to as such and not as Valium. N^oformation ^Talk 21:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

@Noformation: To be fair, how many people search for "Cannabis (drug)"? Part of the title is the statement it makes, the implications it has, and the things it supports. Exercisephys (talk) 01:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

If I understand your implication correctly, it's a fair enough point, but I don't know that it would change my outlook in a general sense. Just to be clear: I think that "adderall" is the exception, and by no means the rule. N^oformation ^Talk 11:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Adderall/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 16:09, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I note that this review has been taken earlier and deleted, so I'll have this one up within 48 hours. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 16:09, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Initial comments

• The prose in this article is generally very good. However I notice a concern of WP:OVERLINK problems, especially in the lead section. Obvious terms such as performance and fast heartbeat could be unlinked

 Done - pruned 2 others I thought were unnecessary as well

• Is it OK for most parts of this article to be transcluded from Amphetamine?

 Note: This isn't done often, so there isn't a policy governing the way article-article transclusions are applied. The only reason I did this is because there's so much content overlap between amphetamine, adderall, dextroamphetamine, and lisdexamfetamine (each of which is notable in its own right) that I decided it was simpler to just update 1 page instead of all 4 whenever I needed to change something common to all pages. Nonetheless, there's actually a quite a few of {{if pagename}} templates in the source code of amphetamine that tailors the transcluded text to each article, where appropriate (for example, the first sentence of medical uses in each article). Adderall has the most content overlap with amphetamine, so I decided to write this article as a simpler, more lay-readable version of that article in the more technical sections (primarily pharmacology; the addiction sections also differ a little to improve accessibility in this article - Adderall has a glossary of terms, while Amphetamine has a very technical signal transduction diagram.

• More overlinking in the Contraindications section; depression and blood pressure could be lost. Also, it would be best to explain that "severely elevated blood pressure" is hypertension in this section

 Done

• "Addiction is a serious risk" - I would unlink addiction and refer it to something like "increase of substance dependence" in order to extend prose

 Note: I deleted the "substance dependence" text and replaced it with Drug addiction for consitency with the addiction glossary terms. I've recently started standardizing the mixed terminology involving dependence/addiction in various addiction articles for reasons I noted at the end of this thread: WT:MED#Lead containing a large glossary of terms. Funny how I didn't notice it here. :P

• "Adderall has been banned in the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA)" - some of these could be linked?

 Done - linked all 3

• "ΔFosB also plays an important role in regulating behavioral responses to natural rewards, such as palatable food, sex, and exercise" - natural rewards?

 Note: I wikilinked the term, though I can also indicate that these refer to behaviors if you think it's worth doing so. Natural rewards are simply rewarding behaviors (these were named as such to make a distinction between drug rewards - the "unnatural" kind - and behavioral rewards)

• "The effects of amphetamine on gene regulation are both dose- and route-dependent" - hyphens should be removed here

 Note: The phrase "dose-dependent" is typically hyphenated (the source cited in that sentence follows this convention), I merely hyphenated route since I assume it follows the same grammar rule. I don't really care about how the sentence is written though, so if you prefer I can just rephrase it as "dependent upon dose and route of administration" or the like.

• "The maximum penalty for unauthorized possession is 5 years in prison" - would put this as five (for figures lower than ten)

 Done

Thanks for being thorough! Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 18:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

References

• Ref 107 should be deleted, it redirects to a Japanese website
• Other than that all references are in working order
• Citations (there are a lot) are all in the correct places, so this meets the GA criteria

I deleted that ref; I'd have removed it sooner had I noticed that it was a bare url. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 18:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

On hold

I have to admit I'm not well versed on the subject of prescription drugs but from a copyediting point of view this article is well written, comprehensive and other than the fact of most of it being trascluded from amphetamine it is near GA material. I am also not sure why the last GAR was cancelled, but in its current form there seem to be few problems. The points I mentioned above were only technical and minor, so I'll put this on hold for the standard seven days until those have been addressed. Thanks, ☠ Jaguar ☠ 17:16, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Close - promoted

@Seppi333: thanks for addressing them! I agree with you and am relieved regarding the transclusion with amphetamine, there is no problem with any policy on any overlap of information. In fact it is better that one article contains so much information instead of having four articles contain the same amount of content. The prose in this article was already very good which explains the review being on the short side. It's comprehensive, well written, well references and stable. The images are also interesting. Regarding the phrase "dose-dependent", if it's ok I'll leave it to you what you think is best? Anyway, well done on the GA ☠ Jaguar ☠ 20:00, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Trial FAC run

@AmericanLemming and Boghog: First off, I want to thank both of you for all the work you two did to help promote the amphetamine article to FA status. Getting that article through FAC was an endless and massive pain in the ass and I doubt it would have been promoted without the assistance each of you provided.

As for this article, after some consideration of AmericanLemming's suggestion to nominate the article, I've decided to do a trial run at FAC to see how things go. Hopefully I won't encounter another Shudde...

I don't think this article is actually comprehensive at the moment since it lacks a pharmacokinetics section. It was deleted a while back IIRC. For that particular section, I'll probably just copy/paste the Adderall-relevant content from amphetamine into this article and then simplify the text to make it more accessible than the amphetamine section. Other than that section, do either of you think the article needs any further expansion or restructuring to be FA quality?

Besides the restructuring, I need to do some prose copyediting in the non-transcluded sections before nominating this; as far as I can tell, the article easily conforms to the other FA criteria. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 19:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Huge problem!

This article says "there is no systemic evidence that amphetamines produce aggression or hostility" or something to that effect--but the source says that while that is the case, the patient SHOULD BE AWARE FOR SIGNS OF AGGRESSION AND HOSTILITY, REGARDLESS, while taking Addderall. Check the citation yourself and you will see.

This is a CRUCIAL part of information that has been excluded from that article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.170.241 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 15 March 2015‎ (UTC)

"Aggressive behavior or hostility is often observed in children and adolescents with ADHD, and has been reported in clinical trials and the postmarketing experience of some medications indicated for the treatment of ADHD. Although there is no systematic evidence that stimulants cause aggressive behavior or hostility, patients beginning treatment for ADHD should be monitored for the appearance of or worsening of aggressive behavior or hostility."
This literally states that there's an effect associated with ADHD individuals to watch for, nothing more. Stimulants may, in fact, reduce aggression in ADHD individuals, but there's no systematic evidence of that either. That said, there's no reason to change the sentence. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 04:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

"Although there is no systematic evidence that stimulants cause aggressive behavior or hostility, patients beginning treatment for ADHD should be monitored for the appearance of or worsening of aggressive behavior or hostility."

My friend, do you not see the implication that stimulant treatment may worsen the symptoms? It's very clear. That's why they begin with "although"--because even though there's no "systematic" evidence, it's still a possibility.

Look at this citation from one of the largest licensed pharmacies in the USA: Adderall may cause mental problems, such as new or worse behavior and thought problems, including increased aggressive or hostile behavior. People with bipolar disorder need special care when taking Adderall. http://www.cvs.com/drug/adderall/side-effects

Why not include the entire sentence from the FDA page, instead of a portion of it? It won't hurt the article. One could simply include the rest of the sentence for the sake of clarity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.170.241 (talk) 14:46, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

The reason why I'm not is because: "stimulants may, in fact, reduce aggression in ADHD individuals, but there's no systematic evidence of that either."

The other material is all covered in the contraindications section. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 18:04, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

repeated content

Many sections of this article are repeated several times, making the page incredibly long. (e.g. the "addiction" paragraph appears 5 times in the table of content, each pointing to duplicate instance of the content) It must be some sort of editing glitch, I imagine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.36.142.232 (talk) 06:39, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is all the transcluded templates that copy in material from amphetamine. Some of them are apparently broken. This complex structure makes it difficult for editors to edit and maintain this article. IMHO, these templates should be substituted and redundant material between articles should be minimized. {{main}} templates pointing to the relevant sections of amphetamine should be sufficient for readers interested in more information. Boghog (talk) 07:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Whenever a transclusion breaks on this page, the amphetamine page should just be reverted until someone can address the changes that the reverted edit(s) made. In this case, it was this edit that removed the selective transclusion parameters (the triple bracketed text), which made every selective transclusion on this page a full-page transclusion. This is why it repeated multiple sections. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 17:45, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for being so harsh, but this page is over engineered and unmaintainable. How on earth is some one supposed to figure which edit on amphetamine is supposed to be undone? At a bare minimum, the cross links should be documented with in-line warnings of unintended consequences if these templates are edited. However it would be much better to substitute these templates so that such warning become unnecessary. Finally these transclusions are needlessly duplicating material. Boghog (talk) 19:05, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

The syntax is actually pretty simple. Any material that is nested between "onlyinclude" tags in the amphetamine article is a selective transclusion. The following two lines create a selective transclusion from amphetamine:

1. <onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{{transcludesection|section-name}}}|section-name|

   Article text goes here...

2. }}</onlyinclude>

In this example, the target article would then transclude this particular content using {{:amphetamine|transcludesection=section-name}}

That's literally all there is to it. Every transclusion error that has occurred up to this point has arisen from the closing syntax being deleted (i.e., the "}}</onlyinclude>") or the parameter syntax (i.e., the "{{{transcludesection|section-name}}}") being deleted. That's really the only part of the source code that needs to be checked to address/fix transclusion errors. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 20:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Added: the only reason these transclusions exist is because of content overlap in lisdexamfetamine, dextroamphetamine, this article, and amphetamine. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 21:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Chemical Study Aid

Why is there no Controversy section for this article? For a number of years Adderall (and now the web-sold Addium) have been abused by college students using its stimulant effects for a chemical study aid:

• The Competition Drug New York Times
• Just say yes? The rise of 'study drugs' in college CNN
• 7 Things You Need To Know About Adderall Daily Beast
• ADHD drugs become popular, dangerous study solution for students NBC News

When you combine the above with the existing brief section about Adderall and athletes it seems to me there really ought to be a Controversy section. Opinions? 172.88.146.9 (talk) 15:11, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies in advance if I'm replying to your question the wrong way. I just clicked on "edit source".

I never care what the newspapers say, however, I do care about what evidence based medicine says. In my personal opinion, Addium is nothing but a glorified vitamin. Please take a look at its active ingredients, and you'll notice that it's basically caffeine, L-tyrosine, GABA, and a bunch of other controversial herbals that have zero science behind them (Huperzine A comes to mind). The company is essentially saying that "well, we know the precursors to dopamine in the brain - let's dump them together and make a pill out of it, and cross our fingers and hope that they get converted to dopamine".

With that being said, it almost makes me sound like I'm saying that Adderall is even a dopamine-reuptake inhibitor, which it isn't - it's so much more complicated, particularly when we start talking about trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) and vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2). And still, there is still research going on about how Adderall works. There is some very heavy science behind it. But I don't know if what I'm saying means that you're not right and that Addium shouldn't be added to the article. I have no idea honestly. I can just tell you that there is science behind Adderall, and pretty much nothing backing up Addium. Heck, if I swallowed a whole bottle of Addium, I'd be surprised if I get anything more than some mild diarrhea.

An article worth looking into:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020278/

As I mentioned though, I am not sure if this means that a "Controversy" section shouldn't be opened. It's just that when I see people abusing these vitamins, I can't help but laugh at them because you'd be surprised how powerful a placebo effect can be. I guess I just feel like it's almost an insult to the many years of biochemical research it took to make Adderall by mentioning some glorified vitamin in the same article. But this is just my personal opinion and I don't agree or disagree with you about adding the section. I'm just not too familiar with the way people decide on adding sections or what the requirements are. Have a good rest of the weekend!

Boonshofter (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

@172.88.146.9, Wikipedia strongly discourages Controversy sections because everyone who has an ax to grind adds to it and it becomes overbloated in violation of WP:WEIGHT. Instead, criticisms should be discussed in other relevant sections of an article, which is the case here. There are also criticisms of this and other stimulant medications in other ADHD-related artciles. ADHD in general is a complex and controversial topic. Look around at related articles; you'll find information on controversies. Secondly, this is a medical article, and the sources you link do not meet the standards of WP:MEDRS. Sundayclose (talk) 16:05, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually Sundayclose, respectfully, the sources I provided DO meet the standards of WP:MEDRS. Please note:

The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles. Most medical news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality,[21] costs, and risks versus benefits,[22] and news articles too often convey wrong or misleading information about health care.[23] Articles in newspapers and popular magazines generally lack the context to judge experimental results. They tend to overemphasize the certainty of any result, for instance, presenting a new and experimental treatment as "the cure" for a disease or an every-day substance as "the cause" of a disease. Newspapers and magazines may also publish articles about scientific results before those results have been published in a peer reviewed journal or reproduced by other experimenters. Such articles may be based uncritically on a press release, which can be a biased source even when issued by an academic medical center.[24] News articles also tend neither to report adequately on the scientific methodology and the experimental error, nor to express risk in meaningful terms. For Wikipedia's purposes, articles in the popular press are generally considered independent, primary sources.

A news article should therefore not be used as a sole source for a medical fact or figure. Editors are encouraged to seek out the scholarly research behind the news story. One possibility is to cite a higher-quality source along with a more-accessible popular source, for example, with the |laysummary= parameter of {{cite journal}}: Empty citation (help).

Conversely, the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical information in a medical article. [emphasis added]

The wide-spread abuse of this medication is definitely both a social and a current-affairs topic appropriate to be in this article. 172.88.146.9 (talk) 12:37, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I couldn't possibly agree more with your assessment. They were all newspaper articles that were quoting Addium. I didn't even bother reading them honestly. My cousin is doing her biochemistry thesis on one of those receptors, which is why I felt that I had to chime in. She's been through hell and back to get actual results she can now publish after 4 years. She defends her thesis in a few weeks actually. Thanks for your input :)

Boonshofter (talk) 16:22, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually the illicit use of Adderall by students is already briefly mentioned in the Adderall#Performance-enhancing and cites Adderall#cite_note-pmid16999660-50. Perhaps this could be expanded a bit with this more recent review:

• Varga MD (2012). "Adderall abuse on college campuses: a comprehensive literature review". Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work. 9 (3): 293–313. doi:10.1080/15433714.2010.525402. PMID 22694135.

Boghog (talk) 17:58, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes this is a great article, from a respectable journal. I actually read it before... but I believe that the original person who asked to create the "controversy" section was more interested in talking about Addium. But I agree, it's a very well established article in the scientific community.

Boonshofter (talk) 18:02, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

It is pretty clear that the original editor who started this thread was more interested in Adderall than Addium. All the four links provided at the beginning of this thread concern Adderall and not Addium. Addium was only mentioned in passing. Finally to state the obvious, this article (and talk page) is about Adderall and not Addium. Boghog (talk) 19:01, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, I wasn't taught my medicine from newspaper articles - we were taught evidence based medicine in medical school - residency was based on solid peer-reviewed articles. So the second I noticed he was quoting sites like CNN, I didn't bother even looking at them. I was also under the impression that he was more interested in Addium than Adderall, and it seems I misread what he was trying to say (which I apologize for).

Regardless, I never intended to offend, and please accept my apologies if I did. Your point is very well taken, and your insight is very much appreciated.

Boonshofter (talk) 19:17, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for being so terse. I just wanted to make sure that the discussion on this talk page remained focused on Adderall. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I really don't see how this drug is controversial. It has well-established ergogenic and nootropic effects and associated adverse effects, which are all comprehensively covered in this article and cited to current reviews of medical research. Unlike the 4 sources at the top of this section, this article does not include value-based opinions as to whether or not a certain behavior (i.e., recreational drug use, doping in sports, or the use of diverted controlled substances as a nootropic) should be practiced, based upon cultural norms and the author's perception of the risks/benefits. As these behaviors aren't specific to this drug, any content relevant to one of these 3 uses would be more appropriate in the associated article than in this one. That said, any medical claims/justifications added to an article would still require WP:MEDRS compliance for the citation. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 21:00, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

The increasing illicit use of Adderall to enhance academic performance is certainly notable and is somewhat unique to this drug. Furthermore just stating the prevalence of this use is not a medical claim, but nevertheless, there is a MEDRS complaint source (PMID 22694135) that can be used to support this statement. Finally this article already mentions this use in the Adderall#Performance-enhancing section. I agree that we do not need to create a separate controversy section, but instead expand the existing performance-enhancing section. Boghog (talk) 21:19, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I'll read through it over the next day or two and update either this page or the amphetamine transclusion, depending on what it says. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 22:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

May I suggest that if the current Performance-enhancing section is modified that it include named subsections of Academic Enhancement and Athletic Enhancement for ease of access to these topics by non-medical readers looking for information on these issues. We also could refactor the article entirely to group both Performance enhancing and Recreational use under an umbrella topic of Non-prescription use or Illicit use (Are there any cases of Adderall being used for performance enhancement under medical supervision?). If agreeable I would be willing to do the section reorganization work myself. 172.88.146.9 (talk) 13:41, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Respectfully, I realize that this is primarily a medical article but knowledge does not live in a vacuum. This medical substance has real-world effects on human behaviour and human lives. That information is found in newspaper articles and should not be excluded just because it is not strictly medical in nature. I selected only well established and vetted journalistic news sources for reference. WP is not a medical encyclopedia, it is a comprehensive encyclopedia.

As for my sources not meeting the standards of WP:MEDRS please see my comment above in response to user Sundayclose.

The drug itself is not controversial as far as I can determine, but the human abuse of the drug in both sports and academia is. I am fine with avoiding a section labeled Controversy as long as the topic is given its due weight in light of the scope and scale of the abuse issue. How much weight would be given to such a topic if the same number of people were being harmed by a side-effect rather than by abuse?

One thing to keep in mind is that people come to Wikipedia for information. They may not be medically oriented readers. Imagine a high school kid comes to WP looking for information on the use of Adderall for sports enhancement or getting good grades. How easy is it going to be for that kid to find the information he needs to realize that such uses are both illegal and unsafe? No, we are not trying to be social workers, just an information provider, but we need to make that information accessible to ALL types of readers, not just subject specialists.

172.88.146.9 (talk) 11:43, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a medical encyclopedia, but by long-standing consensus it has certain standards for medical articles. And those standards are not intended for the article to be only for "specialists"; they are intended to maintain unbiased accuracy (as much as is possible within current scientific research) that does not put undue weight on current newspaper and magazine articles which are very prone to publishing information without enough scientific validity. Medical review articles in peer reviewed journals are far more likely to reflect the current status of a particular medical topic compared to the headlines of newspapers and magazines. Wikipedia is not written for specialists only, but it also is not written for high school students who rely on an encyclopedia rather than medical advice to make a decision about drug use. I also oppose dividing the Performance-enhancing section. It is not a lengthy section, and it gives adequate WP:WEIGHT to the topic. Additionally, as has been pointed out (but largely ignored) Adderall is one of a number of drugs related to ADHD. Controversies are included in those related articles. Our goal is not to concentrate all of the discussion of controversies into the Adderall article, but it is to provide an overview of those issues with links for the reader to follow for more details. Sundayclose (talk) 14:26, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

The fact that Adderall is being illicitly used by students as a academic performance enhancing drug is not a medical claim and hence is outside the scope of WP:MEDRS. Adderall appears to be one of the most widely used drugs for this purpose and that statement is backed up by a reliable secondary source (see PMID 22694135) and hence is fair game to included in this article. Sources like the New York Times are also acceptable sources to support this statement. Boghog (talk) 15:53, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Clarification: Adderall vs Addium

I just wanted to clarify a small point in my original post: Above some of the Editors seem to have keyed in on my parenthesised comment, "(and now the web-sold Addium)", as if that was my primary concern, for the record it is not. Respectfully the very fact that my comment was in parentheses should have been a clue about the level of significance I attached to the sub-topic. Furthermore, contrary Boonshofter's comment about the four source links ("They were all newspaper articles that were quoting Addium.") NONE of these articles even mention Addium by name, though there is a brief mention about "fake Adderall" in one of them.

The sole reason I mentioned Addium in passing is because it is being called "legal Adderall" in web advertisements and email spams for the product. In fact the reason why I came to this article was to find out what Adderall is. Prior to seeing one of these spams I didn't even know about the history of the abuse issue. I would suspect that our "customers" (people who come to the encyclopedia looking for information) would likely do much the same. 172.88.146.9 (talk) 11:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

We got it (see our follow-up comments above). Boghog (talk) 12:45, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Ooops! missed that. Thanks Boghog. 172.88.146.9 (talk) 12:52, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Wow, I'm honestly blown away - although there's disagreement at times as I read the comments above, I love the professionalism, and I love even more how passionate everyone is in making Wikipedia a better resource. I have no clue how I would've gone through medical school if it weren't for Wikipedia. I'm not very technologically savvy, so I felt bad that I couldn't do edits like everyone else (without screwing up the article somehow). So when I graduated from medical school, I decided to make a huge donation to Wikipedia instead -- to make up for my lack of edits. I just felt so bad. At the end of the day, it boils down to each and every one of you guys making these comments above - you guys are the reason Wikipedia has been my primary source (and literally the source of every medical student in my class, and probably the majority of students in any discipline across the country). Thank you for being so passionate about your opinions and not backing down, regardless if someone disagrees with you or not. It's all about respecting each others' opinions. Boghog, you were not terse at all -- you were passionate about your opinion, and that alone deserves a lot of respect. Thanks again! Boonshofter (talk) 17:17, 15 July 2015 (UTC)