I believe how much your heart rate increases is the biggest factor in ADHD stimulants being a heart risk. IIRC it is somewhere around 10% increased risk for every 10bpm over 60. My heart rate is generally around 80-90 without stimulants, and on stimulants it is 120-130. So stimulants increase my risk of a heart attack by 40-50%. It is worth it. Why live with 40-50% less risk, when it means a shitter life without the ability to think properly?
If you run on a treadmill your heart rate easily can go up to 140-190. This is why the mass hysteria around stimulants is ridiculous. Heart attacks also don't exist like people think they do. Your heart doesn't just beat faster and faster and then stop, what happens is you breathe in air which causes the heart to pump blood, if the heart beats faster than the lungs can take in air you won't be moving at all, to experiment, go running for a few minutes and see how you get what they call "winded".
That is my first proof to show you all you are having panic attacks, not heart attacks. If you have a heart attack, you won't be able to talk, let alone move around or think clearly. So the heart rate cannot exceed past the capacity of your lungs because it is like a computer operating faster than its electricity allows it to. How do stimulants raise heart rate then? They make your lungs work more efficiently. By stimulating the central nervous system, ALL biological functions speed up as a result. You breathe faster (hence the increased heart rate), you sweat more (hence meth "acne"), you feel more (hence the greater sexual pleasure from orgasm), and your brain works much more efficiently (if you have ADHD/ADD that is, it is like defragging your brain).
Now what is a heart attack, then? Again, there is no "heart attack". The first way your heart will stop beating is if you cannot breathe. This is how people who use too much CNS depressants or downers die, as these do the opposite of stimulants to the central nervous system, in that they slow everything down instead of speed it up. You breathe slower, you sweat less, your brain works slower (which is why you don't get anxiety on them and don't think as much), and such. Now if you take too much downers your breathing keep slowing down until your heart cannot beat fast enough to send blood to the brain and hence you die (brain death is the only true death).
However, we have a built-in safeguard from this happening. It is called sleeping. If your breathing slows down enough you fall asleep, and wake up when your breathing speed increases. This is why people who overdose on heroin for example, usually inject it, because they put too much dope in the needle and the safeguard is overruled, because their brains cannot counteract the effects fast enough. A simple safeguard against this is to start small with downers and gradually increase the amount with time intervals between. This means if you take what would be a lethal dose in one shot, spread out with 15 minutes in between, you would fall asleep before you would die. What happens is that people try to impress their friends (same with alcohol intoxication) or get a really strong effect, so they take more than they can handle. This can be prevented with this method.
The other way you die from not being able to breathe is if you choke, which is how people in my opinion actually die from opiate overdoses. What happens is you are sleeping and cannot wake up because you are breathing too slowly, but your body rejects something, usually when people combine alcohol with it, as your liver cannot process alcohol if there's no blood to do that task, so you throw up, and normally you'd wake up when this happens, but you cannot wake up, so it blocks the airways.
So that's the first and main concern about "heart attacks". The other is clogged arteries, the heart works fine but the arteries cannot send blood as efficiently, but you don't have to worry about this, because there are symptoms before this kills you, you will feel weak and tired all the time, and get actual pain in your body because there's not enough blood to perform tasks, and not in one area like pins in needles, but all the body. This can be resolved by simply exercising more and reducing low density level carbohydrates, or getting surgery to clear blocked arteries.
Next you have heart disease, which is when your heart itself gets basically infected with a virus or bacteria, this is what you all might think of as a heart attack. This can be resolved with antibiotics or surgery in most cases.
Heart failure is just when the heart works less good than it used to, but it can be reversed with simple lifestyle changes.
So to put it simply; people don't just drop dead from stimulants, there are signs first.
As for having a higher or lower heart rate, it all depends on anxiety and exercise. If you are sitting around at peace, lower heart rate, sitting around anxious, faster, exercising not anxious faster, exercising anxious faster, etc.
Blood pressure is the thing to get checked, not heart rate. But this too changes, and you decrease this by exercising and eating better.
Stop freaking out people... in summation...
Stimulants: They don't make you drop dead unless you were going to drop dead anyway. Still, start small and slowly increase doses to get where you want to be.
Depressants: Same as stimulants. Again, with both drug classes, start slow, but especially be cautious when you mix drugs, as they don't just add to each other, they multiply each other.
Hallucinogens/Dissociatives/Etc: Even less risk with these. Again, dose small, get your health checked first. These are actually the safest class of drugs, but when on them they can make your panic attack much worse and make you think whatever you believe is happening, which is why you have a good trip by staying positive, a bad trip by staying negative.
