When good drugs turn bad

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Every second weekend, Beatrice*, a 26-year-old professional, arranges lines of white powder and snorts them up her nose. But the white powder isn’t cocaine or speed. It is a crushed-up tablet of dexamphetamine, a pharmaceutical stimulant prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Beatrice, however, does not suffer from ADHD. She simply takes it for recreation.
“If you use it in moderation, it sort of perks you up so you won’t fall asleep,” says Beatrice. “If you take a lot, you stop having control of your faculties and feel like you’re on drugs and kind of alert.
“When I first started doing it, I was very nervous about snorting. So I would eat them and get the effects half an hour...

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