A mysterious Adderall shortage reveals how America fails ADHD patients
The DEA controls their supply, under what it calls a “closed system of distribution”. After the agency decides its annual production quotas, manufacturers and distributors must set limits on how much of the meds each pharmacy can buy. Pharmacies must guard the substances under lock and key, and fill out forms if they lose even a single pill. Doctors, of course, must screen their patients. Every link in this supply chain must also refuse and report any “suspicious orders” of unusual size, frequency, or “deviating substantially from a normal pattern”.
Violating any of the DEA’s rules can mean big trouble: anything from civil penalties to criminal prosecution.
Government efficiency at estimating, planning for and supplying the market then.
Meanwhile, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which controls the supply of the drugs, announced last month that it would not increase manufacturing quotas for 2023, despite the shortage…..
The United States has Soviet Union style shortages of Adderall because the United States runs the supply chain of Adderall as if it were the Soviet Union.
All hail the efficiency of government planning!
That, and I bet they massively over-diagnose ADHD.
I doubt there’d be any shortage of Adderall under any system if it was appropriately prescribed.
There are plenty of alternative suppliers of Adderall, they are just situated in the Mexican desert so probably not GMP compliant….
A similar government mess caused last year’s baby formula shortage in America. It’s incredible how such a rich country gets so many basic things wrong.
AndrewM: It’s incredible how such a rich country gets so many basic things wrong. There may be some insight in the cynical remark of the one of the poor bachelor farmers in Garrison Keilor’s Lake Wobegone Days: “The rich can afford to be progressive“.
ADHD is a manufactured ‘disorder’ to increase sales of pharmaceuticals. Traditional treatment included a clip round the ear and, ‘Sit still!’.
They of course didn’t do any of this shit for Oxy, thereby enabling the Sackler family to make billions of the deaths of poor whites.
Its good to be chosen.
Many years ago I used to teach martial arts to kids. Some aspects of karate are a little technical and can quickly exceed the attention span of young kids. I found that having a very energetic first half of the lesson to knacker the little buggers out made them a lot less inclined to mess me about in the second half when I would teach them the difficult stuff. I think that it is pretty normal for kids to have too much energy, maybe this is exacerbated by too much sugar in the modern diet, but nevertheless pretty normal.
Came here to say something and saw Flubber already said it.