Question about adderal vs methamphetamine

I'm going to repost a comment by u/OptionalAccountant I found in this post/.

Ok so apparently I am the first medicinal chemist to discover this post! I have some things that I could shed some light on that nobody else has seemed to cover!

So, yes, amphetamine, the main ingredient in adderall, is extremely similar to methamphetamine. In fact, meth is simply amphetamine with an added methyl group at the N-position. The addition of this methyl group has two consequences that make methamphetamine a more powerful drug than amphetamine.

The methyl group makes the molecule overall more lipophillic (fat-soluable). As such, fat soluble compounds diffuse across the blood brain barrier much more quickly and in higher concentrations. This in tern elicits a more powerful rush and euphoric high, because that drug rushes into the brain much quicker. This effect is enhanced by quicker routes of administration such as smoking or injecting that already send a large amount of the drug directly to the blood stream. The methyl group has effects on metabolism. Methamphetamine is active on it's own, but as soon as it enters the body, the methyl group is slowly being cleaved, as the molecule is metabolized into amphetamine. This increases the duration of the drugs effects by a large percentage, because not only does methamphetamine have to go through it's elimination halflife before it is cleared from the body, but the methamphetamine that is metabolized into amphetamine, is active on it's own, and must go through it's own halflife just as if someone were to have taken the amphetamine alone. So yea, Meth is innately a stronger and more euphoric/addictive drug than amphetamine because of these medicinal chemistry properties, but I would argue that this isn't what makes street meth so much more dangerous than prescription meth, the other answers reflect this a lot better. The purity of the drug is a huge danger as you don't know exact ingredients like you would pharm grade drugs. The lack of accurately measured dosages is a big danger, especially since even 10mg of meth may be cut with 5mg or more of inactive or different ingredients with unknown effects. Also, people redose and redose for days on end because you can buy tons of meth in powder form, this is when amphetamine psychosis kicks in and people start doing stereotypical meth head shit. Amphetamine psychosis can happen to people on ADD meds too, I saw it happen to my GF in college as she picked bugs out of her face even when she knew they were not there.

And yea the worst thing about street meth/amphetamines vs ADD meds is route of administration. Just as I said the pharmacological differences of meth are enhanced by more direct method of administration such as smoking or injecting, these are the methods that most often are associated with the most danger. There isn't really a way to achieve the same type of rush from prepared ADHD medications, as one does from smoking or injecting straight crystalline forms of the drug. Now in the UK, speed is popular, which is a clandestine amphetamine preparation, and I am sure you see all of the same shit you see from meth in the US, despite the fact that amphetamine is the same chemical in adderall. Preparation and method of administration and dosage measurement are the main differences between street and Adhd stimulants.

/r/Stims Thread