What is 'amphetamine psychosis'?
For a long time, the defenders of amphetamine were saying, "That only occurred in people who already had a hidden case of schizophrenia," "They took too much amphetamine," "They had a florid psychotic episode." But there was a definitive study done by a psychiatrist named Connell in England. Awareness that amphetamine's dangers have always seems to have been greater in England. Americans seem to like it better, or to be more attached to it, as another way of putting it. There is a cultural attachment to it, to that amphetamine effect in the U.S. This psychiatrist, Connell, looked at a large number of cases of amphetamine psychosis, looked at their backgrounds. These people had very little in common in terms of personality type. Some of them had been recreational users, but many of them had become, basically, just heavy medical users, and become addicted. When you take amphetamine for its psychiatric effects, for its mood lifting effect, you need to take more and more, same with weight loss. Tolerance builds up fast, you take more and more. After a year or two, you may have taken enough that you just go completely mad. The American Medical Association never acknowledged amphetamine's addictiveness right through the 60's, and they tended to regard amphetamine psychosis as exceptional or associated with recreational use.
