On Speed with Nicolas Rasmussen
A failed chemistry experiment to create a better asthma drug is what jumpstarted America’s love affair with the most popular class of stimulant drugs of the past century: amphetamines. By the late 1960s, one in twenty Americans was receiving amphetamines by prescription. Today, that number has doubled.
Tune in as we examine the meteoric rise in the use of amphetamines in American culture and “America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic.”
About Our Guest
Nicolas Rasmussen is a Professor of History & Philosophy of Science at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. He is a historian of medicine and life sciences, with advanced degrees in History & Philosophy of Science, Biological Sciences, and Public Health. He also has undergraduate and Masters degrees from the University of Chicago.
His work on the history of amphetamines has been recognized with the 2007 Stanley Jackson Prize from the Journal of the History of Medicine, and the 2007 J. Worth Estes Prize for history of pharmacology, from the American Association for the History of Medicine.
He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and three books, including, On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine.