Did Robby Starbucks ever drop that bombshell?

The Adderall reckoning; most people on it don’t need it, and BIG PHARMA paid doctors to get patients addicted…

The Adderall Shortage is Causing Mass Chaos for Patients, Doctors and Pharmacies

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7vyk9/the-adderall-shortage-is-causing-mass-chaos-for-patients-doctors-and-pharmacies

If you want to ruin a pharmacist’s day, all you have to do is try to fill an Adderall prescription.

Pat Cassidy, a 37-year-old from New Jersey who has been prescribed Adderall for 12 years, would know—he said he recently called 16 pharmacies in the span of two days after being told his medication was expected to be on backorder for two to three months.

Hours spent in conversation with pharmacy associates extended into the following day. Eventually, he hit a wall.

“I mean, at a certain point they're like you know, fuck off,” he said.

Patients across the country are struggling to access Adderall, one of the most commonly prescribed treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, as a national shortage of the drug drags on.

“My life is turned upside down. My ability to deliver both at work and in my personal life the way I’m used to is compromised,” Cassidy said.

A labor shortage at Teva, the largest supplier of Adderall in the U.S, put the medication on backorder in August. Since then, several other pharmaceutical companies also reported shortages including Ameal and Sandoz. The three companies did not respond to a request for comment.

The pandemic brought a sharp increase in Adderall prescriptions, with mental health startups like Cerebral and Done prescribing Adderall to ADHD patients virtually. The easing of telehealth restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed controlled substances to be prescribed without an in-person medical evaluation.

In May, Cerebral was under investigation for possible violations of the Controlled Substances Act and was issued a subpoena by federal prosecutors. Around the same time, the Drug Enforcement Administration launched an investigation into the company’s practices. Cerebral announced in May that they would stop prescribing almost all controlled substances to new patients that month and existing patients in October.

Recently, Done was also being investigated by the DEA’s Diversion Control Division, which addresses the diversion of legally manufactured drugs from legitimate sources. Pharmacy giants CVS and Walgreens announced in late May that they would no longer fill ADHD medication prescriptions from Cerebral and Done. The pandemic caused most psychiatry appointments (app or otherwise) to go virtual, and whether pharmacies will still fill controlled substances from telehealth appointments has become hit-or-miss. This has become a problem for people who moved during the pandemic, but wanted to keep their doctor.

Adderall prescriptions rose to 41.4 million in 2021, up 10.4 percent from the year before, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Kristin, a 34-year-old from California who asked to be identified by her first name for privacy reasons, told Motherboard she began rationing her Adderall after learning that people were having difficulty accessing their medication, taking half and eventually quarter doses.

Sure enough, when it came time to refill her prescription, she said that she was told that her medication was on backorder. Discouraged and demoralized, Kristin spent a week relying on leftover medication and three days completely without it before she was able to access Adderall.

“The only thing that we can do is just call and hope for the best, and that seems really unfair,” she said.

Adderall is classified as a schedule II controlled substance, meaning that it has high potential for abuse, so prescriptions typically cannot be refilled earlier than 30 days since it was last filled, and there are also typically restrictions on how many pills a patient can get at a time. This has presented an additional hurdle for patients who are left scrambling at the end of their supply, and, even in the best-of-circumstances, have to tightly schedule their doctor appointments and pharmacy trip to keep a steady supply of Adderall.