From Chinese Ephedra to Laboratory Amphetamine
The origin of this entire family of stimulants lies in a plant: ephedra, used in China for millennia for its stimulating properties. Its active ingredient, ephedrine, was isolated by the Japanese chemist Nagai Nagayoshi in 1885 and served as a model for synthesizing deoxyephedrine, which we would eventually come to know simply as amphetamine.
The first clinical trials with these molecules were developed almost in parallel in China and the United States between 1920 and 1926. By 1936, amphetamines were already in American pharmacies, just in time to be consumed in industrial quantities during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, where they were distributed as chemical fuel for soldiers and aviators.
When Speed Was Bought at the Pharmacy
During the Franco era and the Spanish Transition, pharmaceutical amphetamine was a common product. It was sold under brands like Simpatina, Dexedrina, or Centramina, and its consumption followed very recognizable patterns. In 1955, during exam season, about 100,000 units were sold monthly, compared to barely ten thousand in August. In Pamplona, pharmacists detected a spike in sales on the eve of the San Fermín festival, which would deflate once the festivities ended.
As documented by historian Juan Carlos Usó, it was not uncommon for a family doctor to recommend amphetamines to a student to help them face exams, often with the family’s approval. By the late sixties and early seventies, there were many reports of their widespread use among youth—to stay up dancing all night or to appear more talkative—and yet, a public health crisis did not erupt. Amphetamines only came under international control in 1971, and not as prohibited substances like cocaine, but as prescription medications—a requirement that, in Spanish practice, was often not enforced.
How Street Speed Was Born
The pattern is well-known and repeats with almost any substance: while it is available, cheap, not stigmatized, and attracts no attention, its circulation proceeds without major issues—much like what happens today with coffee or over-the-counter pure caffeine. The change came when pharmacies began to strictly require prescriptions. The last amphetamine withdrawn from Spanish pharmacies was Centramina, on January 1, 1998. From then on, the void was filled by a clandestine, overpriced, and inconsistently composed product: speed.
What Is Really in a Wrap?
Talking about speed is, to a large extent, talking about powdered caffeine. Analyses compiled by Energy Control and published in ¿Sabes lo que te metes? Pureza y adulteración de las drogas en España (Eduardo Hidalgo, 2008) described an average purity of less than 20%, with the rest consisting of mannitol, ephedrine, sugars, and various adulterants. The most disturbing conclusion was not the low purity itself, but the enormous variability: samples of 1% coexisting with others of 96%.
This irregularity has clinical consequences. High doses in people without tolerance can cause hallucinations, seizures, strokes, palpitations, heart failure, and, in extreme cases, coma. In fact, data cited by these analyses point to something paradoxical: deaths associated with amphetamine have been more frequent among those who consumed it sporadically than among regular users, precisely because the former do not know what they are dealing with.
Sampling from the Basque Country illustrates this. In 2003, material sold as speed and analyzed by the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of the Basque Country—with samples donated by users through the association Ai Laket!—turned out to be 45% caffeine, 20% amphetamine, and the rest adulterants. In 2004, the proportion of amphetamine fell to 15%, with the presence of caffeine and paracetamol, as reported by Cáñamo magazine. Ephedrine, for its part, was sold without a prescription until the year 2000 under well-known brand names before its withdrawal.
When Even the Courts Don’t Know What Was Seized
The confusion between speed and caffeine has reached the courts. In December 1992, as reported by Diario Vasco, several young people arrested at the border with three kilos of supposed speed brought from Holland saw the police forensic analysis conclude that it was actually caffeine, which led the defense to request their provisional release. There are similar anecdotes involving musicians who were fined for a wrap of “speed” before even knowing the content was harmless. The underlying story is always the same: an opaque market where the buyer pays drug prices for something that often is not a drug at all.
The Business of White Powder
This is where one of the sharpest criticisms of the phenomenon lies: pure caffeine is a cheap, over-the-counter product, while speed is sold at the price of an illicit substance. A large part of the value paid, therefore, does not correspond to the drug, but to the legal risk and the opacity of the clandestine circuit. It is prohibition—not the molecule—that creates the price markup, adulteration, and unpredictability.
Critical Reading and Harm Reduction
The original text this article is based on, very much in line with the Spanish anti-prohibitionist activism of the nineties and two-thousands, openly argues that the harm associated with speed comes primarily from its illegalization rather than its use. It is a thesis with a real basis—purity variability is a documented danger—but it should be qualified: amphetamines, even in their pharmaceutical and pure form, carry cardiovascular, neurological, and dependency risks that do not disappear simply by knowing the dose. Idealizing the “clean” consumption of the past is as imprecise as ignoring the problem of adulterants.
From a harm reduction perspective, some principles have broad support: substance checking at specialized services (such as those developed in Spain by Energy Control or Ai Laket!) allows one to know what a sample actually contains; mixing stimulants with sedatives or depressants subjects the body to contradictory and dangerous demands; continuous use accelerates physical wear and tear and encourages dependency; and shared equipment for snorting can transmit infections like hepatitis. None of this replaces professional health information or individual medical assessment, which is where anyone with specific health concerns should turn.
Educational content written from a harm reduction perspective and with respect for individual freedom. It is not a substitute for advice from a healthcare professional and is not intended to encourage or condemn any drug use.
Sources Cited in the Original
The starting text relied on, among other references, works by Antonio Escohotado, Juan Carlos Usó (Drogas y cultura de masas), Eduardo Hidalgo (¿Sabes lo que te metes?), Jonathan Ott, and Andrew Weil, as well as reports from Energy Control and materials from Cáñamo magazine. We cite them by name, without links, because they came from the original document and not from our own bibliographic verification. It is advisable to read them with a critical spirit: some of them defend markedly anti-prohibitionist positions that the reader should contrast.
