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Commentary By Charles Fain Lehman

The Downer about Uppers

Health Drug Development, Healthcare

Adderall is America’s new legal drug of choice. Is it fueling the drug crisis?

Americans can't find enough Adderall. In 2021 pharmacists filled over forty million prescriptions for the popular ADHD drug, a sixteen percent increase in just two years. But this explosion in demand, likely driven by lax telehealth prescriptions during the pandemic, has run up against available supply. Because Adderall is a controlled substance, its production is carefully limited by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Some people who have taken Adderall daily since they were children find themselves struggling to operate without it.

Continue reading the entire piece here at The New Atlantis (paywall)

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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. 

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