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AR's benzedrine use in news

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Just saw mention of Ayn Rand's bennies use in this article among others listed:

" Greene soon stopped taking the drug; not all writers had such self-control. In 1942 Ayn Rand took up Benzedrine to help her finish her novel, The Fountainhead.* She had spent years planning and composing the first third of the novel; over the next 12 months, thanks to the new pills, she averaged a chapter a week. But the drug quickly became a crutch. Rand would continue to use amphetamines for the next three decades, even as her overuse led to mood swings, irritability, emotional outbursts, and paranoia—traits Rand was susceptible to even without drugs."

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2013/daily_rituals/auden_sartre_graham_greene_ayn_rand_they_loved_amphetamines.html

Edited by intellectualammo
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Finally!  It was Rand who got so many of us addicted to coffee and nicotine.  At last...a formal sanction of harder drugs, from the High Priestess herself.

 

If the primary choice is to focus or not, then Adderall is indeed the consummate nectar for channeling the Objectivist sense of life.  Better warn the pharmacies we're coming.

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From the Wiki:

" Adderall is widely used as a "study drug" at many universities,[41] It enables the user to focus and stay awake. Stories of students writing papers continuously for an unusually long time or "cramming" all night for an exam with no loss of energy or concentration are common.[41] Adderall use as an academic advantage has become increasingly common among college students. Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health.[42] According to a 2010 National College Health Assessment, 8 percent of surveyed University students said they had used stimulants within the past 12 months that were not prescribed to them. Numbers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 6.4 percent of full-time college students abused Adderall in 2007. But some studies have found that as many as 25 percent of students abused prescription stimulants.[43] Illegal Adderall use is highest among students from the northeastern region of the United States and students from colleges with more competitive admission standards.[44] Students with A.D.H.D. sell Adderall on college campuses for anywhere from $5 to $25 a pill depending on the time of the academic year.[45] Adderall is a Schedule II drug. Selling it is a Class B felony and can result in 24 months of probation and up to 60 days in jail. Possessing the drug without a prescription can result in 18 months probation and up to 30 days in jail. [46] It is often difficult to catch illegal Adderall sales because the pills are “easily concealed, odorless, and can be perceived as prescribed drugs”.

Peikoff does a podcast about the use of certain drugs can be morally sanctioned, and how he used "chemicals" something stronger than caffeine for writing papers in college:

http://www.peikoff.com/2011/08/15/can-the-use-of-drugs-such-as-benzedrine-or-caffeine-ever-be-morally-sanctioned-for-example-in-the-pursuit-of-extremely-mentally-taxing-work-requiring-a-high-degree-of-long-term-mental-focus/

Edited by intellectualammo
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My interest was Rands using in the news and what is said in regards to it. She was also on antidepressant of some kind I think I read elsewhere in the last three years or so of her life. There was a book or two I read that really did a good job of going into her using. I think they were Ayn Rand And the World She Made and The Goddess of the Market.

It seems it can be moral to use if it's for a productive purpose, and so forth, it's contextual. Even smoking I think Peikoff said, if it's something that can get you through. I'm not sure what podcast I heard that one in.

For me, I only use coffee when I wake up to get me going.

Edited by intellectualammo
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It seems it can be moral to use if it's for a productive purpose, and so forth, it's contextual. Even smoking I think Peikoff said, if it's something that can get you through. I'm not sure what podcast I heard that one in.

 

Given what's known about the dangers of smoking any defense of the morality of smoking would necessarily include a huge heap of dishonesty. I certainly hope that nobody would take such a defense seriously just because Leonard Peikoff made it.

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