Why We Can't Have Nice Things: The War on Drugs
How the FDA and DEA overrule the interests of doctors and patients.
How the FDA and DEA overrule the interests of doctors and patients.
The medication shouldn't be this controversial.
Special interests and government prevent the free market from working the way it should in the healthcare industry, making many Americans poorer and sicker.
Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs project brings a bit of free market flair to the health care industry, but the lack of meaningful price signals is only part of the problem.
Making emergency contraception easier to get leads to more people getting emergency contraception. Who would've guessed?
Those three presidential candidates are making promises that would have bewildered and horrified the Founding Fathers.
The majority and the dissenters agree that the drug was "central" to "the opioid crisis," even though there is little evidence to support that thesis.
As the DEA relentlessly tightens regulations on pain meds, the FDA refuses to approve a safer alternative already being used in similar countries.
Plus: A listener asks the editors about the Selective Service.
But will the government ever face repercussions for its role in the Adderall shortage?
A "desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue," wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the Court's opinion.
The war on drugs meets abortion...
There's an easy way to lower the cost of next-generation weight-loss drugs.
I'm the DEA's poster child for prescription stimulant abuse: a 30-something adult who needs a telehealth psychiatrist and can't remember what day the garbage truck comes.
The CDC’s numbers show that pain treatment is not responsible for escalating drug-related deaths.
The government still blames the private sector despite its own role in creating, exacerbating, and prolonging the shortage.
The DEA is cracking down on manufacturers, hurting patients who genuinely need those drugs.
Plus: Adderall shortages, infrastructure lessons, Kanye West, and more...
The Court also rejects a late-filed amicus briefs from the American Bar Association, but accepts one from former FDA Commissioners.
The Court announced today that it would take up a case involving access to the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone.
The Court has been asked to intervene in cases involving abortion pills and criminal prosecution of abortion doctors.
The government has doubled down on failed policies, citing deeply flawed studies and misrepresenting data.
The Republican presidential candidate ignores the lethal impact of the drug policies he avidly supports.
More than 1 in 3 Florida foster kids over 13 is taking psychotropic medications, but the state often doesn't follow rules requiring it to keep records of prescriptions.
Medicare's new price-setting process for drug purchases is better than its current one if the result is lower government spending.
The change, while welcome, is modest and won't get rid of patients' headaches as they try to fill their prescriptions.
Americans will be sicker and deader in the long run than they otherwise would have been.
While schoolchildren go without needed medication, government agencies shirk responsibility by blaming manufacturers.
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Why won’t the FDA allow women to buy a safer product without requiring a doctor’s visit that medical experts think is unnecessary?
Mifepristone will remain on the market for now with no changes to how it can be prescribed.
"These things are just so inexcusable," a judge said. "It's hard to understand."
Prosecutors could end up with a trove of patient-level data regarding highly personal drugs like Viagra, abortion pills, and more.
Plus: The editors respond to a listener question concerning corporate personhood.
The divergent orders from judges in Washington state and Texas may bring the battle over mifepristone to the Supreme Court.
Thanks to onerous regulations, life-saving drugs are more expensive and harder to get.
Each year, the DEA sets production limits for certain drugs, including some ingredients in common amphetamine pills like Adderall.
The advent of effective new weight loss drugs offers hope for millions of overweight people.
On Friday, the DEA unveiled a plan to restrict doctors' ability to prescribe controlled drugs over telehealth.
Since the Federal Trade Commission didn't sue in time, the deal went through. But will FTC Chair Lina Khan keep trying to attack Amazon for its bigness?
Over 88 percent of opioid overdose deaths now involve either heroin or fentanyl. Targeting prescriptions is not an efficient way to address mortality.
And increase total health care costs to boot.
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Naloxone could be available without a prescription by spring.
You can’t turn lives and economies off and on without inflicting lingering harm.
After losing access to opioids, many patients can’t live with constant pain.
The damage done by the original guidelines, including undertreatment and abrupt dose reductions, could have been avoided if the CDC had not presumed to advise doctors on how to treat pain.