The United States Faces a New Crisis

I find myself in an unfortunate position as I must inform you that the United States faces a new crisis, one which threatens the very structure of our public school systems. It has recently been reported that the supply of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs are in short supply:

Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions.

The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night.

Emphasis mine. You can almost admire how the government ensures no “crisis” goes to waste. When a shortage of ADHD drugs occurs they claim it’s because the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been cracking down as college students are using the drugs to get high. In actuality the shortage is most likely due to the fact ADHD drugs are horrendously overprescribed because any child who acts like a normal child is instantly diagnosed with ADHD and drugged up. After all a normal child is active and curious, traits that can be hard to deal with for teachers and parents so it’s far easier for everybody involved (well except the children, but fuck them since they’re not old enough to be in the military and therefore useless to the state at this point) if kids are sedated. This article did bring up an interesting fact I was previously unaware of:

While the Food and Drug Administration monitors the safety and supply of the drugs, which are sold both as generics and under brand names like Ritalin and Adderall, the Drug Enforcement Administration sets manufacturing quotas that are designed to control supplies and thwart abuse.

I never knew the DEA put quotas on the supply drug manufacturers can produce. Economically speaking the government is creating an artificial shortage, which is likely, at least partially, responsible for the insanely high cost of prescription drugs in this country.