Why did doctors keep prescribing amphetamines in the 1960's after the dangers were exposed?
By 1960 the scene has changed a little bit. Amphetamine Is an old drug, there's many brands out there, there are newer antidepressants. Amphetamine is still the best and recognized the best, dominant, diet drug. And the experts are saying, "hey, there's better antidepressants now," and psychiatrists and so on are telling general practitioners you should be using these different ones. There's evidence out there that it is addictive in the medical population, let along, abusing populations. Abusing populations came to sort of notice that the medical world with that in 1947 study of ex-service men, was widely abused in inhaler form because it was so cheap you didn't need a prescription. It was big among the beatniks, jazz musicians, and widely know that it was abused in inhaler form. Pill for...the addiction, even among non-abusers was getting to be know. But prescribing, it's never declined. I think it was driven by patient demand. The patients didn't want a different drug. Amphetamine was the drug that helped them, sort of, meet the demands of their daily lives.
