You could buy amphetamine at a US drugstore until 1959. π . . . Smith, Kline & French sold the Benzedrine Inhaler over the counter starting in 1933 as a decongestant. Users cracked them open and swallowed the paper strip soaked in racemic amphetamine. Jack Kerouac wrote 'On the Road' during a 3-week Benzedrine binge in April 1951, hammering out 125,000 words on a single continuous scroll of paper.
Source
Nicolas Rasmussen, 'On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine', NYU Press 2008; corroborated by American Journal of Public Health, 2008, 'America's First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929β1971'
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