Is there any information on why Charles whitman was taking Dexedrine ( prescription amphetamine) ? I’m also curious on how he got it since his Wikipedia says he saw a psychiatrist once and never went back.
He only saw the campus psychiatrist one time, but was referred there by the regular campus MD, who had already prescribed him Valium. He probably got the Dexedrine prescription from the campus MD or another GP, most likely for depression.
He was abusing Dexedrine for a long time but it wasn’t prescribed by a doctor.
A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders by Gary M. Lavergne
Was dexedrine over the counter back then?
Was it taken out of Dexatrim by then? I know it started being controlled in like 1970 because I was reading about it a few years back when researching ADHD for someone.
He was seeing lots of different doctors in the months before the shooting. He complained of headaches and feeling like he wasn’t in control of his violent impulses. Only one of his doctors was a psychiatrist, but he saw many others. It’s possible that he saw a doctor whom the investigators didn’t discover or that one of the doctors they did find, lied about it. It’s also possible that he bought the drugs illegally in an attempt to medicate himself.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have consulted a brain surgeon.
Hey, Gary’s a friend of mine! I will ask him to come visit this thread…
So Gary Lavergne responded via PM:
Hey, Hippy… Whitman was never prescribed Dexadrine. It was not a controlled substance in 1966 and was pretty easy to secure, even illegally, which Whitman did, from a small town pharmacist he knew.
It was a very popular upper back then. And common on college campuses.
(Just to be clear, Gary is not a Doper. I told him the thread was here and this is the reply he sent to me via Facebook. So I think he lurked, and wanted me to pass this along.)
Didn’t he have a tumor next to his amygdala?
*There was a rumor about a tumor
Nestled at the base of his brain.
He was sitting up there with his .36 magnum
Laughing wildly as he bagged 'em.
Who are we to say the boy’s insane? *
–Kinky Friedman “The Ballad of Charles Whitman”
I wasn’t around, but it is my impression that it seems about a quarter of Americans were taking amphetamines or other — legal — non-medical drugs for various reasons ( including slimming, endurance, psychological reasons etc. ) from the 1920s on to when they were made illegal.
It is the only way to account for the febrile nervosity of mid-twentieth century life and the curious decisions then made.