You wouldn’t pirate a medicine, would you?

  • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    4 months ago

    Yeah, one of the meds they talk about making is Vyvanse. That’s having a serious national shortage right now due to a combination of the DEA and corporate greed. It’s illegal for compounding pharmacies to make it but there’s no technical reason they couldn’t. Same for lots of this stuff.

    • evranch@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 months ago

      So uh yeah as we all know a lot of amphetamines have already been “open source” for a long time.

      And we also know the DEA really doesn’t approve of private production… Vyvanse itself only really was created as a produg because of their control of the amphetamine market and their desire for products with lower abuse potential.

      If we could get the DEA out of the way anyways, it would make more sense to just make dextroamphetamine as it’s simple, cheap and effective.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        4 months ago

        It’s funny because a lot of people really like Vyvanse (that is: lisdexamphetamine) better than the alternatives. It was only made because the DEA wanted fewer people to take regular amphetamines and then a bunch of people responded well to it and the DEA went “wait! Not like that!”

        Anyway, it’s on generic now. The only reason there’s a shortage is the DEA.

        (Before you say “I’m not in the US and we have a shortage, too!” the drug companies killed all their production lines because the DEA basically gave them an excuse to try to force people off Vyvanse and onto meds that were still under patent.)

        • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Depending on how Vyvanse is Scheduled; it might be legal to privately make. If it’s not scheduled like a standard amphetamine; the DEA is powerless.

          I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not illegal to compound this stuff. But IANAL; and it doesn’t matter if the DEA thinks it is and will hassle anyone trying.

          • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            I am not a lawyer but as far as I know: it super isn’t. It’s also illegal for compounding pharmacies to make, where I live.

    • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 months ago

      That would be great. My insurance was already not covering Vyvanse super well, but I at least had the extra coupon thing from Vyvanse that was getting it under $80 per month. But the start of this year Vyvanse stopped the coupon since there was a generic and my insurance was also pushing that. Which I didn’t realize was a thing until I was about a week and a half past my refill and just kept getting auto calls from Walgreens that it was delayed.

      Found out it was because the generic was on back order and they literally didn’t know when they (or any location in my county or the next one over) would even get it. So I had to demand that they just fill the name brand since I can’t function at work. The pharmacist was like “It will be over $200, are you sure you don’t want to wait?”. And all I could say was “Not like I really have a choice atm if I want to have my meds.” Which while the price was (and still is) fucked. I am glad I didn’t just keep waiting. I just said to put it on my file that I request the name brand if the generic isn’t available.

      It does seem that the insurance has also seen this happening to a fuck ton of people as they are back to at least covering what they were before. Which is still costing me around $125 or so a month since Vyvanse didn’t re-instate their coupon. I had thought about going back to Adderall, but it doesn’t last as long and I have heard there have been shortages for both name brand and generic before Vyvanse and its generic.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        4 months ago

        Man, in lots of places the you can’t even get the name brand so at least there’s that.

        I have heard, don’t know how true it is, that hospital pharmacies have first shot at the supplies so they’re less affected by stuff like this. For what that’s worth.

        • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          For sure. It might be that my city has a regional hospital in addition to being pretty close to a much larger city with multiple hospitals. Also likely helps that the larger city nearby has an airport which UPS and Fedex (might also have others) hubs in it. Along with those shipping companies having big ground sorting/shipping facilities in the same city.

          I can currently roll with the prices as long as I can still get my meds. Just hoping that the generic versions are able to catch up next year.