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Expected pharmacological effect
Causality assessment · Expected pharmacological effect
Methamphetamine Hydrochloride and Drug Abuse: is the FAERS signal real?
A written Bradford Hill assessment of one drug–event pair. The grade is a judgement about the signal, not a statement that this drug causes this event in any one person; FAERS counts are reports, not rates.
Methamphetamine Hydrochloride ↔ Drug Abuse
n=238 co-reports · PRR 55.7 · ROR 71.3
Methamphetamine is a CNS stimulant of high abuse potential. Drug abuse is the expected consequence of its powerful dopamine-releasing properties: methamphetamine produces intense euphoria and has high addiction liability (Schedule II). 8,719 co-reports (PRR 27.5) reflect widespread recreational use and medical use for ADHD. The label carries a boxed warning for abuse, dependence, and misuse.
Boxed warning: methamphetamine label (abuse/dependence/misuse). DEA scheduling.
| Bradford Hill viewpoint | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Temporality (necessary) | met | Documented in label |
| Strength | met | PRR 27.5 with 8,719 co-reports |
| Consistency | met | Reproduced across stimulant class |
| Specificity | met | Specific to dopamine-releasing agents |
| Biological gradient | met | Tolerance and escalation documented |
| Plausibility | met | Dopamine-release mechanism established |
| Coherence | met | Coherent with stimulant pharmacology |
| Experiment | n/a | Unethical to randomise |
| Analogy | met | Other stimulants class-wide |
This table is this page's own qualitative read of the literature cited above, not an automated or citation-gated assessment — see the note at the bottom of this page.
✗ No ClinicalTrials.gov results-posting trial in the top search hits for Methamphetamine captured drug abuse as a tracked adverse event in a usable structure. ADHD RCTs measure efficacy; abuse liability assessed in separate studies.