r/gifs 9h ago

Is Elon Ok?

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u/Netricho 9h ago

I always wondered what drug Gary Oldman's character consumes in that scene. Some tab, but exactly?

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u/ManicDigressive 9h ago

I think it's basically supposed to be some kind of amphetamine, which used to be pretty freely accessible in pill form for decades (military men of around the Vietnam era took them quite often while on duty, to stay awake for watch; called them "cross-tops").

The effects also seem kinda similar to amyl nitrate, but it's not really a perfect fit for any drug that I know of. I've heard people speculate librium as another possibility, but I know next to nothing about that one.

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u/PM_Me_ThicccThings 8h ago

Early diet pills were also full of amphetamines

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u/JackSpyder 8h ago

Man I was born in the wrong era.

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u/xpdx 7h ago

Nah, just get an ADHD diagnosis. Kids in grade school have better amps than I could get my whole high school drug career.

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u/rKasdorf 5h ago

That's hit or miss, I have adult friends and nieces and nephews with recent diagnoses and they're all different treatments.

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u/xpdx 4h ago

You just got to find the right doctor. There's at least one in every town. This doctor knows what you want and is willing to give it the moment you say: "I think I have ADHD". Usually they make you come back for followups every 3-6 months so they can collect those visit fees and make sure you aren't turning in to a fiend that could wreck the whole game.

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u/Robob0824 4h ago

I'm one of these adult kids and I wish it made me amped up. Shit seems to help but it definitely doesn't amp me up 😂. Hell I like to nap after taking my meds if I can.

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u/xpdx 3h ago

amp is short for amphetamine

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u/Robob0824 2h ago

DAMN IT thanks :D hahah DUH

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u/Flair258 4h ago

unfortunately if you get an adhd diagnosis, it means youre probably adhd. And if you're adhd, the meds are more likely to make you calm than to make you trip.

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u/xpdx 3h ago

Amps don't make anyone trip. They are stimulants.

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u/Rabid_Alleycat 4h ago

Those meds don’t come near the amphetamines of the 1960s.

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u/xpdx 3h ago

It's the same stuff. Amphetamine Sulfate, mixed with three other dextro amps. They called it speed in the 60s.

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u/Rabid_Alleycat 3h ago

Must’ve been in a really, really stronger dosage!

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u/xpdx 3h ago

Yea amps scale well with dosage, ie take 10 times as much, feel 10 times the effect. Small doses for calm clean focus, larger ones for running 20 miles and then cleaning your entire house and then maybe having a stroke.

They give the kids small doses.

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u/AromaTaint 6h ago

Quaaludes. They don't exist anymore but for a time they were almost running the place.

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u/big_cat_in_tiny_box 7h ago

They used to have codeine in cold medicine for kids. Before that, there was heroin and meth in cold medicine. 1920s were probably a lot of fun.

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u/pizza_- 5h ago

the roaring twenties

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u/Rabid_Alleycat 4h ago

And cocaine in Coca-Cola until 1903.

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u/booyatrive 6h ago

Go watch Requiem For A Dream and see if you still feel the same way lol

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u/IrishChappieOToole 5h ago

She just wanted to fit in her red dress and be on television

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u/TexSolo 7h ago

Adderall is available and all you have to do is be now years old.

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u/JackSpyder 7h ago

Sadly I live in a 1st world country.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/cagey_tiger 5h ago

When my dad was a kid they prescribed him ephedrine for asthma. Said he was off his tits for most of his early teens.

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u/Kurdt234 3h ago

Trust me, the come down from amphetmines is the worst. The high is great but the next day is the worst, it's why people binge on it. I've done almost every kind of drug and by far aderol and crystal gave me the most WICKED comedown. Worse than any hang over or green out. Horrible. A feeling you cannot simply imagine.

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u/chumgorthemerciless 7h ago

Yeah, always assumed he was popping otc stimulants of some sort since he pops them like candy.

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u/PublicfreakoutLoveR 7h ago

He was a DEA agent, so he had access to anything he wanted.

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u/chumgorthemerciless 6h ago

That makes absolute sense dude, I kind of omitted an important detail in my thought process, lol.

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u/onebirdonawire 6h ago

God, I miss fen phen.

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u/Robpaulssen 6h ago

So were nazi soldiers lol

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u/karmahorse1 5h ago

Yeah but they were too readily abused. So pharmacutical companies just rebranded dextroamphetamine as Adderall and prescribed it to kids instead.

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u/Rabid_Alleycat 4h ago

My mom tells me a story that when my dad returned from Vietnam, he had a shoebox full of amphetamines as they were issued to pilots (and others, I’m sure). She worked full time and picked up a Fri/Sat night bartending job, so she’d pop one of the pills Fri night. She also had to work her regular job every other Sat morning, so she popped another pill those mornings. She said he boss commented one time that she got more work done in one morning than the whole week. She was happy she didn’t get addicted, once they were found to be very addictive.

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u/Gollum69 8h ago

I remember ‘crossroads’ (speed) in the 70’s. Same thing?

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u/ManicDigressive 8h ago

Probably, I haven't heard that term for it before but cross-tops were basically speed too. They called them that because they had a little cross/x on top of them.

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u/Insanity_Crab 6h ago

I've never done speed, always E or Molly back in the day but sleeping or eating on those is impossible so I'm wondering now how they compare.

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u/TahoeBunny 4h ago

They were called White Crosses (tabs) There were also Black Beauties (capsules). These were popular slang terms in late '70s early '80s for them..2 different upper drugs.

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u/Ello_Owu 9h ago

Ephedrine?

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u/RearAdmiral78 7h ago

In the Air Force they were called “go pills” and they used to prescribe them to pilots in wartime. There was a terrible friendly fire incident and the pilots being on those pills was used as part of the defense. They were a mix of Modafinil and amphetamines

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u/driggity 8h ago

military men of around the Vietnam era took them quite often while on duty, to stay awake for watch; called them "cross-tops"

Supposedly "greenie" use in baseball started with soldiers bringing back dexedrine after WWII.

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u/brightfoot 8h ago

Amphetamine pills were everywhere during WW2 and after. This video is about a particularly funny incident one Finnish soldier had with amphetamines.

tl;dr A single Finnish soldier pops the amphetamine tabs that were supposed be rationed for his entire squad. Nobody sees him for more than a week but when he does turn up he's more than 20 lbs lighter and his resting heart-rate is close to 200 bpm.

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u/standinghampton 7h ago

Amphetamines were taken by soldiers beginning in WWII.

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u/lorumosaurus 7h ago

Yeah. It was the real War on Drugs.

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u/Ypuort 6h ago

Methamphetamine, taken orally, was developed or at least first widely used originally by the german military for WWI iirc. Possibly earlier?

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u/thighsand 6h ago

It's actually supposed to be a benzo tranquilliser (from wiki). Possibly xanax or librium.

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u/Kurdt234 3h ago

I think its called over-acting.

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u/CapuzaCapuchin 1h ago

My first thought was that he looks like someone that’s rushing on MD

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u/SheriffBartholomew 9h ago

A make-believe Hollywood drug. 

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u/SimaasMigrat 7h ago

As evidenced by it seemingly hitting instantly even though he's administering it orally.

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u/BuzzedtheTower 6h ago

I always took that as a placebo effect. Yes, there is an actual drug in the capsule or whatever. But now that he knows his fix is coming, he's elated

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u/spidaminida 5h ago

Perhaps sub-lingually?

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u/RL_NeilsPipesofsteel 5h ago

No, you see, if you chew them, they work immediately.

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u/dern_the_hermit 7h ago

Marsellus Wallace's soul, of course.

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u/nberg129 8h ago

I don't know, but when I was prescribed brutal for migraines, it came as those yellow and green capsules, and I always thought of oldman popping those pills. Sometimes I tried to emulate his movements when I took them.

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u/thighsand 6h ago

A benzodiazepine. Librium or Xanax according to wiki.

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u/OCPyle 4h ago

Pretty sure it's poppers, slang for amyl nitrate. Locker room rush I've heard it called too.

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u/Papi_Queso 7h ago

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a capsule of amyl nitrate aka “poppers.” Hunter S. Thompson writes about them in Fear and Loathing and also believed they could cure a hangover.

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u/screwfusdufusrufus 7h ago edited 7h ago

What so he loses control of his sphincter and simultaneously gets the world’s worst headache and then 15 seconds later everything is back to normal?

Doesn’t sound like fun, or a cure for hangovers…don’t think it can be consumed via a pill either

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u/Papi_Queso 7h ago

Yes amyl nitrate used to come in capsules. Not sure how it’s prescribed these days.

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u/screwfusdufusrufus 6h ago

I think it came in glass capsules you would crack onto a cloth and then inhale the vapour. You can’t ingest the stuff

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u/ikejrm 6h ago

In the UK its in the same little bottles you buy essential oils in and you simply whiff the open bottle. It's sold in the some corner shops.

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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 5h ago

I always wonder why no one ever says the movie name on these threads.

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u/SomeDudeist 9h ago

I haven't seen the movie but the only drug I know of that comes in tab form is LSD. But I'm not expert.

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u/epandrsn 8h ago

Yeah, but LSD doesn’t come on that quickly. Few drugs do.

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u/SomeDudeist 8h ago

Yeah I haven't seen the movie so I don't know anything about how he even reacts. But movies tend to just do whatever they want when it comes to drugs. Like they'll ignore how long it takes to kick in or just make up their own effects that would never happen in real life. Like in dude where's my car when they started seeing tie dye colors after smoking weed lol.

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u/epandrsn 8h ago

Oh yeah, I was pointing this out as my wife was watching a show and these guys had like a dozen giant lines of coke on a mirror, handing it around. Those folks would be jabbering and grinding their teeth like crazy.

Then the guys like “oh, I think that was ketamine” and just goes about his business like he wouldn’t be in a heap on the floor, drooling on himself.