Amphetamine is a psychostimulant drug which is known to produce increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite. Amphetamine is related to drugs such as methamphetamine, dextroamphetamine and levoamphetamine, which are a group of potent drugs that act by increasing levels of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine in the brain, inducing euphoria. The group includes prescription CNS drugs commonly used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults and children. It is also used to treat symptoms of traumatic brain injury and the daytime drowsiness symptoms of narcolepsy, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome. Initially, amphetamine was more popularly used to diminish the appetite and to control weight. Brand names of the drugs that contain amphetamine include Adderall, Vyvanse, and Dexedrine. The drug is also used illegally as a recreational drug and as a performance enhancer. The name amphetamine is derived from its chemical name: alpha-methylphenethylamine. The name is also used to refer to the class of compounds derived from amphetamine, often referred to as the substituted amphetamines.Fact: date=April 2009

Recreational users of amphetamine have coined numerous nicknames for amphetamine, some of the more common street names for amphetamine include speed, crank, and whizz. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reports the typical retail price of amphetamine in Europe varied between 10€ and 15€ a gram in half of the reporting countries.

History

Amphetamine was first synthesized in 1887 by the Romanian Lazăr Edeleanu in Berlin, Germany. He named the compound phenylisopropylamine. It was one of a series of compounds related to the plant derivative ephedrine, which had been isolated from Ma-Huang that same year by Nagayoshi Nagai. No pharmacological use was found for amphetamine until 1927, when pioneer psychopharmacologist Gordon Alles resynthesized and tested it on himself, in search of an artificial replacement for ephedrine. From 1933 or 1934 Smith, Kline and French began selling the volatile base form of the drug as an inhaler under the trade name Benzedrine, useful as a decongestant but readily usable for non-medical purposes. One of the first attempts at using amphetamines as a scientific study was done by M. H. Nathanson, a Los Angeles physician, in 1935. He studied the subjective effects of amphetamine in 55 hospital workers who were each given 20 mg of Benzedrine. The two most commonly reported drug effects were "a sense of well being and a feeling of exhilaration" and "lessened fatigue in reaction to work". During World War II amphetamine was extensively used to combat fatigue and increase alertness in soldiers. After decades of reported abuse, the FDA banned Benzedrine inhalers, and limited amphetamines to prescription use in 1965, but non-medical use remained common. Amphetamine became a schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act in 1971.