[mquander]

This is a lame argument, akin to complaining that people using computers for fun are reducing the supply for people using computers for work. We can just make computers for everyone. That is what the free market is designed to do.

You should direct your ire at the people who are actually reducing the supply directly, namely the DEA, who are the ones preventing the production of sufficient Adderall. If there were not arbitrary restrictions on manufacture, then both the people who need it and the people who want it would be able to obtain it, and more cheaply at that.

[sixtofour]

"This is a lame argument, akin to complaining that people using computers for fun are reducing the supply for people using computers for work."

The DEA limits how much of these drugs are allowed to be made. Companies have to petition to make more. The DEA says there's enough, yet people with prescriptions sometimes have to get the drugs illegally themselves.

"CONAN: Well, I was interested in your piece to hear the DEA say there is no shortage.

KNOX: Yes, I was - I was surprised, too, because the FDA says there is. And, you know, they have a website on the FDA that lists all the drugs in shortage, and there are a lot of them these days. And I've - one thing that caused me to do the story is I found that methylphenidate, the Ritalin-type drugs, popped up on that list a week or two ago."

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142661880/adhd-sufferers-fear-...

If you think that's lame, maybe you could tell the DEA that we need more, so casual users won't cut into legitimate users' supply.

[eli]

The DEA is only one factor. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to suggest that Shire is giving less than 100% towards the production of Adderall since they have a new brand-name drug Vynase that is still protected by patent.

I'm still not exactly sure how Shire managed to set it up so that they are the only ones making the ingredients for generic Adderall.

[mquander]

I agree completely.