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Douglas_Knight comments on Open Thread for February 11 - 17 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Coscott 11 February 2014 06:08PM

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Comment author: Pfft 11 February 2014 08:00:46PM 1 point [-]

Modafinil is prescription-only in the US, so to get it you have to do illegal things. However, I note that (presumably due to some legislative oversight?) the related drug Adrafinil is unregulated, you can buy it right off Amazon. Does anyone know how Adrafinil and Modafinil compare in terms of effectiveness and safety?

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 11 February 2014 09:53:43PM 7 points [-]

No, you don't have to do illegal things. Another option is to convince your doctor to give you a prescription. I think people on LW greatly overestimate the difficulty of this.

Comment author: hg00 12 February 2014 08:02:28AM 1 point [-]

Some info on getting a prescription here: http://www.bulletproofexec.com/q-a-why-i-use-modafinil-provigil/

I think ADD/ADHD will likely be a harder sell; my impression is that people are already falsely claiming that in order to get Adderall etc.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 13 February 2014 09:45:33PM 1 point [-]

I don't even mean to suggest lying. I mean something simple like "I think this drug might help me concentrate."

A formal diagnosis of ADD or narcolepsy is carte blanche for amphetamine prescription. Because it is highly scheduled and, moreover, has a big black market, doctors guard this diagnosis carefully. Whereas, modafinil is lightly scheduled and doesn't have a black market (not driven by prescriptions), so they are less nervous about giving it out in ADD-ish situations.

But doctors very much do not like it when a new patient comes in asking for a specific drug.