Adderall IR Supply on East Coast May Be Gone Until January 2012

Do you have a refill for Adderall coming up? Better go ahead and call the doctor, get down to the doc's office, pick up that piece of paper and prepare to hit a number of pharmacies. America is suffering from an Adderall shortage. Some blame the shortage on all those college kids using Adderall to get an academic edge on things. However, since only between 1.5 and 3 million college kids are likely using Adderall to any significant extent, blaming them is probably about as incisive as blaming Barack Obama for the nation's economic problems caused by two wars, massive outsourcing and deregulation during the Bush era.

Blame is beside the point, anyway, when you hear the following from a pharmacist: "We aren't expecting to get any of your medicine until the first of the year." People are hearing those words, or words to that effect, from pharmacists across the East Coast. Even worse, according to an article written by Liz Dsurney for Breezemju.org, an anonymous pharmacy worker has this very dark and scary assertion: "The regular-release Adderall is pretty much gone on the entire East Coast."

Pretty much gone on the entire East Coast.

Go ahead and call your doctor right now if you need an Adderall refill. Just be aware that it may not matter. If you can't get your little pink or blue instant release Adderall tablets, however, you may not necessarily be facing down the mountains of madness. You could always call your physician back and ask for the extended release version. Or, possibly, you could call up your insurance company and see if they will shell out for brand name Shire Adderall. Just, you know, be sure your insurance company isn't United Healthcare. You might as well go down to the park and buy health insurance from a homeless person sleeping in a cardboard box as depend on United Healthcare to help you out with any actual medical need.

So, anyway,what's the deal with the Adderall shortage? One theory is that those college kids are scooping the medication up illegally and thus creating a shortage. That may be true to some extent. But only as it relates to another element that suggests that the FDA limits how much of this controlled substance can be manufactured based entirely on estimates of how much will be needed.

Interestingly, the profits that Shire has experienced selling brand name Adderall have recently doubled. How is it possible for a company to double its profits when demand outstrips supply? Oh yes, of course, what was I thinking.

That's what a little thing called capitalism is all about.

Shire and other pharmaceutical companies would do well to remember that while capitalism is the best thing to ever happen to drug profits there is one inescapable fact of life: people who are dead, crazy or homeless can't buy their medications. It may make sense from a capitalistic point of view to keep supply down in order to raise demand and prices, but from a humanist point of view, when people can't buy your product, they will look for alternatives. And a flood of people looking into alternatives for Adderall is really, really, really not a good thing for Shire and the generic manufacturers.