Can you believe there is a nationwide shortage on Adderall? For almost two years now?

I am here to pick up my prescriptions. My name is Branco. Antonio.

OK, thank you, Mr. Branco. Let me go get those for you.

Ok, thanks for waiting. You have two prescriptions ready.

Um, excuse me, I should have three.

Oh, I’m sorry. One of your meds is on backorder. The Amphetamine Salts 30 mg.

When do you expect to have them?

It says here – September 30.

Might any of your other locations have them?

No, sir. I’m sorry. There is a national shortage.

That was the conversation I had at my pharmacy a few days ago when I went to pick up my meds. That was September 20. I have one of those pills left. So that means I have to go nine days without this prescription.

I have tried several meds to treat my depression over the last three or four years. The only one that I feel has had any sort of a positive effect is Adderall, or this generic version called Amphetamine Salts.

Of course, that is the one the pharmacy does not have. This is also the one, the pharmacy is telling me, that no one has.

I did call around to a few more CVS’s and all four confirmed what the first one said.

That got me thinking about writing this article. I began by thinking about what to title it. I played around with the word Adderall in my head. It includes the words “add” and “all.” Interesting. I could work with that. Seeing as how there was a shortage of the medication, the “add” part sounded ironic. Subtractall? Meh. Notatall? A little better.

How about Cantfindittall? Now that was funny to me, and appropriate, because this medication can not be found at all right now.

My life partner, Erin, has grown tired of hearing me, at least once per week, if not once a day, say, disgustedly,  “Richest country in the world.” I say it whenever I see something that shouldn’t exist in such a rich, developed country like ours – potholes, boarded up businesses, traffic delays, power outages and flooding as a result of a short thunderstorm, or homeless people at every stop light, just to name a few. There are several other instances that come up, but I can’t think of them all at this moment.

I said it to her when I got home from the pharmacy that day. 

They don’t have my pills. They say there is a shortage nationwide. Richest country in the world and they can’t make enough of these pills that millions of people count on to get through the day?

It’s ridiculous to me. It is easier to get weed in this country now than it is to get medication. That shouldn’t happen, especially in this country.

We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t figure out how to make enough Adderall for everyone who needs it? I find it hard to believe.

Don’t misinterpret me – I love this country. I appreciate how lucky I am to have been born here. But is it wrong of me to think this country can be even greater? Note that I said that we can make our country greater, not that we can make it great again. This country is, and always will be great.

But there is no ethical, acceptable reason for this shortage. The same thing that has made this country great is also one of its biggest downfalls.

“Greed is good” is the famous quote by Michael Douglas from the movie, Wall Street.

I can almost pinpoint the change in American culture to the time that quote was first uttered on a movie screen. Greed can be good, but competition is always good. 

How many times have you worked with someone who has inspired and pushed you to work harder? They made you better. Therefore, multiply that times a million instances of that happening across the country, and logic would dictate that the entire country becomes, exponentially, better.

It happens in sports all the time. Almost every great athlete had a great rival – someone who pushed them to greater heights, and, with it, raised the stature of the entire sport. Ali had Frazier. Navratilova had Everett. Connors had McEnroe. Magic had Bird. Brady had Manning.

America was built on competition. Competition is when someone wants what someone else has. That also defines greed.

But greed can also be a detriment to society. Someone has to lose. People get left behind. It is survival of the fittest on a whole other level. Survival does not depend just on the physical fitness of individuals, but also the mental and psychological fitness of an individual. 

It also depends on the ethics of an individual. The saying “nice guys finish last” exists for a reason. You may be the smartest, most fit person in the world, but you can still lose to someone who doesn’t play by the rules. If you are not willing to step on people’s feet or stab them in the back, you may lose to someone who will.

Is there a better example of this than the long-running reality, and aptly named, TV show, Survivor? Why has the show been on so long and been so popular? I think it is because it appeals to that primal personality trait in a lot of people.

There is also the saying, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That is the phrase I apply, frequently, to politicians. Do politicians really care about us little people? I never understood why anyone running for President spends hundreds of millions campaigning for a job that pays $400,000 per year. Senators make $174,000 per year.

The salaries get lower and lower the further down the political chain you go. Is it any wonder when local politicians get caught taking bribes or making unethical deals?

Which gets us back to the Adderall shortage. Is there really an Adderall shortage?

As soon as I got home from the pharmacy that day, I did what I usually do. I did a search on YouTube for “Adderall shortage” and went down the rabbit hole. There it was – plenty of news stories about the Adderall shortage which has been going on for over two years. Who knew?

Adderall is a controlled substance. There are always zero refills on these prescriptions. I need to be cognizant of when I am down to my last five or six pills. I then have to call, usually every thirty days, my doctor’s office to send authorization for a refill on my Adderall to the pharmacy. For someone who hates using the phone like me, it is tedious and stress-inducing.

Being a controlled substance the Food and Drug Administration only allows drug companies to make so many pills. They determine the number based on forecasts.

Well, their forecasts have been wrong. The COVID pandemic caused some changes which resulted in a 20% increase in Adderall prescriptions. One of those big changes was prior to COVID, patients could only be prescribed Adderall if they visited their physicians in person. When COVID prevented patients from meeting with their patients in person, physicians were allowed to prescribe Adderall after conducting far less comprehensive telehealth evaluations.

Of course, the FDA forecasters underestimated this and never allowed an increase in the production of ADHD drugs. I could relate.

Technology can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be frustrating. I worked for McDonald’s for thirty years and I, obviously, saw a lot of changes. On a weekly basis, I would have to put together an order for food, paper, and other miscellaneous products from our distribution center. That involved walking around the store and looking at all 500+ individual products and ordering whatever amount of each I saw fit.

Technology got to a point where computers began to provide for me suggested order amounts based on previous sales (and based on a correctly taken inventory, which was rarely done accurately by my managers, or even me). 

The problem I ran into often was that these orders always underestimated demand for products during promotions. To further complicate things, the distribution centers began limiting the changes one could make to the computerized orders. If the computer said you only needed to order 15 cases of chicken nuggets, the computer would allow you to increase the order by maybe two or three cases, but not much more. Sometimes it wouldn’t let you adjust it all.

The distribution centers then became very reliant on these computerized projections to tell them how much product to keep on hand at the warehouses. It never failed that by the end of the first week of a four week promotion, the distribution center would send an email saying there is a shortage of such-and-such a product (as, per the example above, the chicken nuggets).

It infuriated me. I would complain to my supervisors that this was so stupid – every time we have a successful promotion, the distribution center couldn’t keep up, then we were the ones stuck explaining to angry customers that we don’t have the product we are promoting.

I am sorry, we are out of chicken nuggets today. Would you like to try a fish filet instead?

What? How can you be out of nuggets? No, I would not want a fish filet. I came here because I saw the commercials on TV for the nuggets – you know the one with that famous hip-hop rapper!

What do you say to that?

You’re right. We’re dumb. We’re incompetent.

Being out of chicken nuggets is one thing. Being out of Adderall is something completely more important.

Other than poor forecasting, there are conspiracy theories online that pharmaceuticals aren’t making enough of the generic pills because they want doctors to prescribe the name brands or some of the other newer, more expensive pills for treatment of ADHD.

This is where that greed discussion from earlier comes in. Could this Adderall shortage be about money?? I don’t know why that would shock anyone because this country has been built on, let’s say it together, GREED.

It’s sad.

It’s not sad, it is infuriating that people’s health, and finances, are being compromised in order to financially benefit others – usually people who don’t need any more money. These people have no issue with people being put in coffins if it means putting a few more tens of thousands of dollars in their coffers. 

I hate to harken back to the Matthew Perry case which I have written about a couple of times. Those doctors knew that what they were doing by giving Perry ketamine to use, improperly and illegally, at home might result in Perry dying. Yet they did it anyway – even going so far as to call him a “moron.” And why? To milk Perry out of a measly $50,000?

I don’t think people will die if they go without Adderall for a few days or, even, weeks, but it will affect their lives and, very possibly, their jobs and relationships. It could also affect their self worth and you know what that can lead to. It only takes one moment of weakness.

I know I feel the difference right away when I don’t take it. One day last week, I was driving to my therapist appointment. I felt horrible – tired, unmotivated, in a daze. When I got home, I had to take a nap. I just didn’t feel right and I couldn’t do any of the house chores I knew I had to do.

When I woke up from my two hour nap, I still didn’t feel good as I walked through the kitchen to get a drink out of the fridge. That’s when I looked at my pill case and noticed I hadn’t taken my Adderall in the morning. That explains it. Sure enough, shortly after taking my pill I was cleaning dishes and putting in a load of laundry. I felt fine the rest of the day and night.

That’s not the first time I forgot to take my pills in the morning. Each time, I feel the same as I just described on that day. Adderall makes a huge difference in my life. I cannot function without it. I can, barely, function with it.

I know, if ever, I were to try to return to work, I need my Adderall. And I would need to remember to take it before I go to work. Every report I’ve seen says there is no end in sight to this shortage. 

Well, guess what, Judge Laura, if the supply of Adderall remains unreliable, so am I.

Update: As per usual, being the perfectionist that I am, it took me three or four days from the time I started writing this before I was satisfied to publish. By now, I have been without my Adderall pills for three days.

I have not been able to function – starting with the first morning I was without them – for those three days. I couldn't get out of bed or off my couch. I had no energy. I had no motivation. My head was in a fog. I was a zombie. I had to miss a family function.

It took everything I had to call and leave a voicemail with my doctor this morning, begging him to prescribe me something, anything, that acts similar to Adderall.

He came through for me. He found a pharmacy for me in another town that had dexmethylphenidate. I made the thirty minute drive and took the pill as soon as I got into my car. By the time I got home I was feeling a little more energized and clear-headed.

It shouldn't have to be like this in the richest country in the world.