[DigitalBison]

I genuinely don't understand what point you think this article is making that backs up what you've said here -- would you mind elaborating?

Full disclosure, I am diagnosed with ADHD and take stimulants daily, and initially felt pretty defensive when reading your comments here and starting to read that article. I have some problems with the article and generally find that author pretty insufferable, but the article concludes that the risks of medically-supervised stimulant use are low enough that the author personally finds stimulants worth prescribing to patients who benefit from them.

Even Section 1 which you specifically referenced, and which admittedly made me pretty annoyed until I read it a few times, and even though the author certainly seems to be trying to insinuate that ADHD isn't real, doesn't really seem to be actually backing up that point. His main point or objection seems to be that ADHD is diagnosed using arbitrary subjective criteria rather than objective measurements like other spectrum disorders (isn't blood pressure also a normally distributed trait, where we* "arbitrarily" draw a line and say people on the wrong side of that line have hypertension and should be prescribed beta blockers?).

I'll admit to feeling a little argumentative after reading some of the comments here but I do genuinely want to understand these points better, and I feel like I must be missing some fundamental context or point that the article is making.

*for various definitions of "we", since different countries and organizations define hypertension differently.

[idlewords]

I don't much like the author either, but this is his area of expertise and I think his perspective is valuable.

In my reading, his main points are that (1) ADHD diagnosis is very wooly and (2) amphetamines have a similar effect on everyone, whether or not they believe themselves to suffer from ADHD. The second point in particular is one that is always disputed on internet forums, where it's held as gospel that stimulants have some kind of paradoxical calming effect on the neurodivergent, and that this is one way to distinguish 'real' ADHD sufferers from people who just want better focus.

So the upshot is, there's a powerful focus-enhancing drug that is available to anyone provided they believe in the existence of a condition called ADHD and know how to tell the right stories about it to gatekeepers.