5 ms·

> The government alleges that Done prescribed 40 million pills and generated $100 million in revenue since the start of the pandemic. Ironically, much of this a

> The government alleges that Done prescribed 40 million pills and generated $100 million in revenue since the start of the pandemic. Ironically, much of this alleged overprescribing took place as the U.S. experienced a severe Adderall shortage—for which government officials still refuse to accept any responsibility. "Ironically"? Leaving out the improper usage of the word, is the author that incurious? Are they just determined to find an anti-government angle?

gruez 2y ago
Did you miss the paragraphs immediately following the one you quoted? >As Reason has documented very extensively, the Food and Drug Administration first declared an Adderall shortage in October 2022. Parents stuck at home with their children struggling to pay attention to school over Zoom, along with relaxed rules on telehealth prescriptions, caused ADHD diagnoses to skyrocket. >But the federal government sets annual production caps on controlled substances—including the amphetamines that make up the active ingredients in prescription stimulants like Adderall. And since the start of the Adderall shortage, the government has declined to raise the quotas, keeping the cap in place even as the demand for the drug has gone through the roof.
- mpalmer 2y ago
  I read the whole piece. It's interesting that you view this as supporting the point about irony. I guess if you're completely convinced that the caps lack merit, these paragraphs offer some weak support to the usual Reason anti-government bent. Personally I am not convinced one way or the other. Either way, the fact is that taking action against over-prescribing (especially if it's in the millions of pills) IS a response to the shortage. And I say this as someone who has been personally affected by it.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >I guess if you're completely convinced that the caps lack merit, these paragraphs offer some weak support to the usual Reason anti-government bent. What's the "merit" for these caps? If the problem is that it's being over-prescribed, capping production is probably the worser way of fixing that.
    - mpalmer 2y ago
      Over-prescribed means people are receiving prescriptions who should not be, not that supply is artificially low. The caps were in place before the pandemic, so they are not a "fix". Did prescriptions skyrocket during the quarantine because we found a bunch of undiagnosed people, or because the relaxing of the rules made it very easy for companies to make a lot of money prescribing these medications to people who were struggling working from home? Probably a mix of the two.
      - gruez 2y ago
        >Over-prescribed means people are receiving prescriptions who should not be, not that supply is artificially low. Refusing to increase the cap even though there's increased demand is arguably a conscious decision on the part of the government, and that makes them as responsible for the shortage as the telehealth companies, if not more so. A doctor could plausibly justify over-prescribing with a variety of reasons (eg. the dsm-v being super vague, wfh environment being more distracting, more awareness of adhd) but I can't think of how the government can justify keeping the cap the same, even if it thinks the drug is being over-prescribed.
        mpalmer 2y ago
        > that makes them as responsible for the shortage as the telehealth companies, if not more so Completely ridiculous. You might just as well say that the government is responsible for a lack of wage growth because they haven't decreased taxes to zero. Demand for addictive stimulants will always go up the more available they become. It became more available during the pandemic, and surprise, surprise... The indictment alleges exactly why Done's practices were illegal. Did you read the DOJ announcement or just the Reason screed?
        gruez 2y ago
        >Completely ridiculous. You might just as well say that the government is responsible for a lack of wage growth because they haven't decreased taxes to zero. 1. taxes aren't factored into wage growth figures 2. there's an obvious fiscal impact to lowering taxes. There's no fiscal impact to increasing the quota. 3. the government could plausibly be blamed for refusing to remove limits, even if there's plausible reasons for keeping the quota. eg. zoning restrictions to "preserve the character of the neighborhood" >Demand for addictive stimulants will always go up the more available they become. It became more available during the pandemic, and surprise, surprise... Except that keeping the quota the same is a terrible way to curb over-use/over-prescription. It impacts "real" adhd users and "fake" adhd users alike. If anything it impacts people with actual adhd users more because once they're less able to navigate the bureaucracy and/or call up a dozen other pharmacies to get their supply. It's like trying to fix the obesity problem by keeping food production the same. >The indictment alleges exactly why Done's practices were illegal. Did you read the DOJ announcement or just the Reason screed? I'm not sure how you got the impression that I claimed Done's practices were legal. I was only claiming that there's plausible justifications for "over-prescribing" in general but no such justifications for keeping the quota the same. Even if the drugs were illegitimately prescribed, the solution can't be "let's keep the cap the same and let the "real" and "fake" adhd users fight it out"
HDThoreaun 2y ago
The Adderall shortage is 100% the governments fault. Not only do they refuse to raise the cap, theyve shut down multiple producers for absolute bullshit such as "had an extra copy of the regulatory paperwork". No evidence that any of these policies have helped public health, plenty that its hurt it.
- mpalmer 2y ago
  > The Adderall shortage is 100% the governments fault. A balanced, reasoned view if ever there was one. New Adderall prescriptions _doubled_ in 2021 from the previous year. No one in favor of eliminating/increasing the caps seems eager to account for this. At the end of 2022, months into the shortage, manufacturers collectively had 77,000 lbs of the active raw ingredient on hand (allotment of which is the thing subject to quotas), but naturally no share of the fault goes to them! > theyve shut down multiple producers for absolute bullshit such as "had an extra copy of the regulatory paperwork" I'm guessing this is in reference to Ascent keeping two copies of DEA Form 222, in which case I find your framing to be pretty dishonest. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adderall-shortage-adhd-medication-ascent-pharmaceuticals.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adderall-shortage-ad... "The government learned that Ascent kept two sets of DEA Form 222 — a standard regulatory form that tracks every batch of raw material that enters a factory and every finished pill that is shipped out. Ascent’s employees maintained one set of what the company called “working” 222s and one set of “official” ones that it filed to the government." Sounds like keeping two sets of books to me.

gruez 2y ago

Did you miss the paragraphs immediately following the one you quoted? >As Reason has documented very extensively, the Food and Drug Administration first declared an Adderall shortage in October 2022. Parents stuck at home with their children struggling to pay attention to school over Zoom, along with relaxed rules on telehealth prescriptions, caused ADHD diagnoses to skyrocket. >But the federal government sets annual production caps on controlled substances—including the amphetamines that make up the active ingredients in prescription stimulants like Adderall. And since the start of the Adderall shortage, the government has declined to raise the quotas, keeping the cap in place even as the demand for the drug has gone through the roof.

mpalmer 2y ago
I read the whole piece. It's interesting that you view this as supporting the point about irony. I guess if you're completely convinced that the caps lack merit, these paragraphs offer some weak support to the usual Reason anti-government bent. Personally I am not convinced one way or the other. Either way, the fact is that taking action against over-prescribing (especially if it's in the millions of pills) IS a response to the shortage. And I say this as someone who has been personally affected by it.
- gruez 2y ago
  >I guess if you're completely convinced that the caps lack merit, these paragraphs offer some weak support to the usual Reason anti-government bent. What's the "merit" for these caps? If the problem is that it's being over-prescribed, capping production is probably the worser way of fixing that.
  - mpalmer 2y ago
    Over-prescribed means people are receiving prescriptions who should not be, not that supply is artificially low. The caps were in place before the pandemic, so they are not a "fix". Did prescriptions skyrocket during the quarantine because we found a bunch of undiagnosed people, or because the relaxing of the rules made it very easy for companies to make a lot of money prescribing these medications to people who were struggling working from home? Probably a mix of the two.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >Over-prescribed means people are receiving prescriptions who should not be, not that supply is artificially low. Refusing to increase the cap even though there's increased demand is arguably a conscious decision on the part of the government, and that makes them as responsible for the shortage as the telehealth companies, if not more so. A doctor could plausibly justify over-prescribing with a variety of reasons (eg. the dsm-v being super vague, wfh environment being more distracting, more awareness of adhd) but I can't think of how the government can justify keeping the cap the same, even if it thinks the drug is being over-prescribed.
      - mpalmer 2y ago
        > that makes them as responsible for the shortage as the telehealth companies, if not more so Completely ridiculous. You might just as well say that the government is responsible for a lack of wage growth because they haven't decreased taxes to zero. Demand for addictive stimulants will always go up the more available they become. It became more available during the pandemic, and surprise, surprise... The indictment alleges exactly why Done's practices were illegal. Did you read the DOJ announcement or just the Reason screed?
        gruez 2y ago
        >Completely ridiculous. You might just as well say that the government is responsible for a lack of wage growth because they haven't decreased taxes to zero. 1. taxes aren't factored into wage growth figures 2. there's an obvious fiscal impact to lowering taxes. There's no fiscal impact to increasing the quota. 3. the government could plausibly be blamed for refusing to remove limits, even if there's plausible reasons for keeping the quota. eg. zoning restrictions to "preserve the character of the neighborhood" >Demand for addictive stimulants will always go up the more available they become. It became more available during the pandemic, and surprise, surprise... Except that keeping the quota the same is a terrible way to curb over-use/over-prescription. It impacts "real" adhd users and "fake" adhd users alike. If anything it impacts people with actual adhd users more because once they're less able to navigate the bureaucracy and/or call up a dozen other pharmacies to get their supply. It's like trying to fix the obesity problem by keeping food production the same. >The indictment alleges exactly why Done's practices were illegal. Did you read the DOJ announcement or just the Reason screed? I'm not sure how you got the impression that I claimed Done's practices were legal. I was only claiming that there's plausible justifications for "over-prescribing" in general but no such justifications for keeping the quota the same. Even if the drugs were illegitimately prescribed, the solution can't be "let's keep the cap the same and let the "real" and "fake" adhd users fight it out"

HDThoreaun 2y ago

The Adderall shortage is 100% the governments fault. Not only do they refuse to raise the cap, theyve shut down multiple producers for absolute bullshit such as "had an extra copy of the regulatory paperwork". No evidence that any of these policies have helped public health, plenty that its hurt it.

mpalmer 2y ago
> The Adderall shortage is 100% the governments fault. A balanced, reasoned view if ever there was one. New Adderall prescriptions _doubled_ in 2021 from the previous year. No one in favor of eliminating/increasing the caps seems eager to account for this. At the end of 2022, months into the shortage, manufacturers collectively had 77,000 lbs of the active raw ingredient on hand (allotment of which is the thing subject to quotas), but naturally no share of the fault goes to them! > theyve shut down multiple producers for absolute bullshit such as "had an extra copy of the regulatory paperwork" I'm guessing this is in reference to Ascent keeping two copies of DEA Form 222, in which case I find your framing to be pretty dishonest. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adderall-shortage-adhd-medication-ascent-pharmaceuticals.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adderall-shortage-ad... "The government learned that Ascent kept two sets of DEA Form 222 — a standard regulatory form that tracks every batch of raw material that enters a factory and every finished pill that is shipped out. Ascent’s employees maintained one set of what the company called “working” 222s and one set of “official” ones that it filed to the government." Sounds like keeping two sets of books to me.