Supply and Demand
As a demand planner, I understand the concepts of supply and demand. I work daily to balance the two and contribute my skills to help make my company’s supply chain as “lean” as possible without sacrificing quality. However, there is another area that these concepts apply. The world of drugs. There is a high demand in this area. Therefore, there is a high supply. How do we balance these in order to control addiction? My initial thought is to cut off the supply! I’m specifically referring to the drug, Oxycontin. Stop the supply. Stop producing it all together. I know, the addicts would revert to other drugs, but at least we would get this one off the street.
The demand is not going away. Too many people want to use drugs in order to escape reality. It is the rest of the population who must better manage the supply of such drugs in order to curtail addiction. We need to hold doctors and pharmacists more accountable for the distribution of such strong and addictive drugs. I’m not blaming my prior drug addiction solely on them. But I am certain, that if it had been more difficult to obtain prescriptions for Oxycontin, then I might have gotten clean long before I actually did.
What are your thoughts? How do we manage the supply of powerful pain pills? How do we reduce the demand?
One Pill Away 
I am completely for getting rid of oxy’s all together. There needs to be a more extensive process for distributing medication in general. Personally, I never want to go to the doctor if I am sick, because I know their first answer is going to be shoving something down my throat, and I don’t think that’s always the answer. There are so many other things that we can do such as home remedies that work just fine. And if pharmaceutical companies didn’t give doctors commission for distributing these drugs, we wouldn’t have as many. Pharmaceutical sales have increased since the companies started advertising the products to the customers and not the doctors. Having a commercial for a drug and listing the symptoms that require this medication just breeds a whole new generation of hypochondriacs. It enables us to self medicate which all ultimately leads to drug addiction.
Anyways… that’s just my opinion after working in a pharmacy for years as well as testimonials I have heard.
I hadn’t even thought about the fact that the pharmaceutical companies do market directly to the customers now versus the doctors. You are completely right! This does lead to more addiction and hypochondriacs in the world. Thanks for pointing this out! Great opinions!
As the mother of an oxy addict, I am particularly insterested in laws, etc., limiting or eliminating this drug all together. TN has made a major step in the right direction by requiring doctors to report patients suspected to obtain opiate pain killers under false pretenses. The doctor shopping trips to FL are a big concern. I wish that FL would impose some stricter laws concerning dispensing of opiate painkillers. As long as they hand those medications out like candy, it will be hard to stop the distribution. Also, I know of people on medicare who obtain their drugs at almost no cost to them and sell them to addicts to supplement their income. I wish I knew what to do about it.
Oxy’s have to go. Period.
I hope you are well…thinking about you.