War on Drugs Keeps Badly Needed, Perfectly Legal Medicine Away from Sick People

Sick people, like those suffering from narcolepsy, are suffering from a manufacturing shortage of Adderall. That shortage was caused by the Drug Enforcement Agency, which controls and limits the supply of Adderall’s ingredients.

Denying the obvious, the DEA falsely claims that there is no shortage, and that if there is one, it’s because manufacturers don’t want to make more of the drug, despite the fact that there is plenty of market for the drug:

To manage controlled substances that can potentially be abused, the DEA sets manufacturing quotas for drug ingredients each year to control supplies like Adderall. But Adderall drug manufacturers . . . say they cannot meet the growing demand for the product without looser limits from the DEA. The DEA questions whether there is actually a shortage of generic supplies, which are at an especially low supply . . . Despite the growing demand, Special Agent Gary Boggs of the DEA’s office of diversion control told the New York Times, “We believe there is plenty of supply.” Barbara Carreno, a DEA spokeswoman, told Reuters that . . .“Any shortage of these products is therefore a result of decisions made by industry regarding manufacturing or distribution,” Carreno told Reuters. But a Teva spokesperson told Reuters, “Our production facilities are currently running at maximum capacity for Adderall utilizing all available API (the drug’s active pharmaceutical ingredient). The catalyst for the problem is the quota system, not the business.”

So as Rob Port notes, “the DEA is limiting the supply of ingredients for a perfectly legal drug (when prescribed properly) which treats and alleviates a lot of suffering among Americans in order to fight the war on drugs.”