Workers Seeking Productivity In A Pill Are Abusing ADHD Drugs

Workers Seeking Productivity In A Pill Are Abusing ADHD Drugs
ADHD medication with a composition intended to avoid rapid onset and termination of action. Also used as a cognition enhancer.
ADHD medication with a composition intended to avoid rapid onset and termination of action. Also used as a cognition enhancer.

Fading fast at 11 p.m., Elizabeth texted her dealer and waited just 30 minutes for him to reach her third-floor New York apartment. She handed him a wad of twenties and fifties, received a tattered envelope of pills, and returned to her computer.

Her PowerPoint needed another four hours. Investors in her health-technology start-up wanted re-crunched numbers, a presentation begged for bullet points and emails from global developers would keep arriving well past midnight.

She gulped down one pill — pale orange, like baby aspirin — and then, reconsidering, took one of the pinks, too.

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