No real science plays a role in withdrawing drugs from the market, and determination of the truth is the least important aspect in the process.

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The Phenmetrazine Insane drug of abuse status

Post #1

- Phenmetrazine(Preludin):


The official story:
It was withdraw because it causes wide scale abuse and addiction. The Sweden case being the poster-child of this narrative. With the talking point always on about how drug addicts even perfered phenmetrazine to meth or amphetamine, that puts the status of preludin on the order of the drug most perfered to be abused ever in history of stimulants. So it must be banned.

The real story:

Starting in 1939 and during early 40s, a nationwides launchs against amphetamines drove the creation of an anti-amphetamine push, which persued among other things tighter restrictions to obtain amphetamine, even though cases of amphetamine abuse were extremely rare and sometimes unheard of. In short patients received amphetamines legally on prescription from their physicians and used them occasionally and sensibly to help meet the minor crises of life. But that was about to change when the new amphetamine repression policies and their enforcement started to shape Sweden and US drug culture.

In 1940 Sweden placed amphetamines on the list of drugs available only on prescription, even though the sales were extremely small. This was followed by the US only in 1954, one year before Preludin(phenmetrazine) entered the market.

Amphetamine and methamphetamine were sucessfuly being seized during the 40s and 50s in sweden and 60s on US.

The drive against smuggled amphetamine tablets no doubt helped raise prices and attract more smugglers, as in the United States. High prices also encouraged the switch from oral use to mainlining. In addition, however–– as in the United States–– repression and high prices led to the popularization of amphetamine substitutes: cocaine in the United States, phenmetrazine (sold under the trade name Preludin) in Sweden.

The new restrictive measures, created publicity or publicized warnings, therefore directly resulted in more Swedes of all ages than ever to became alerted to the remarkable effects of the amphetamines. Thus at a time when these drugs were still known to only a minority in the United States, in Sweden they had achieved the status of near-universal familiarity, as a result of these exact repressive measures. This status would be soon hit the US since policy was simply copying the Sweden model with a lag.

The parallel between the US and Sweden is thus now complete. The policies and results were the same, the public learned about amphetamines and created their own culture around it, the restriction and repression popularized amphetamine substitutes (read: phenmetrazine aka Preludin).

Preludin entered the market in 1955 and from there, it was the perfect cheap alternative to amphetamine and meth high prices and low supply. People did not just switched to phenmetrazine because it was better, it was a economical driven choice foremost and then it was the drug itself which is very good too.

In conclusion, phenmetrazine could have been here today in the market for weight loss if these interventions by the goverments in the past were not persued. Amphetamine would still mantain their status as a drug with rare abuse cases, and personal responsibility would play the role of moderation and sensible use, like it was previousl, before the goverment intervetion on the drugs status.

Next drug I will post: Fenfluramine.

Good read. Phentermine, while obviously less recreational, was also abused back in the day, you could write up something on that.