Health and Medicine

The Empty Adderall Factory

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For more than a year and a half, America has suffered from an acute shortage of Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, and other drugs used to treat ADHD. What’s causing the crisis? Increasingly desperate patients and parents have long been told that there are problems with “the supply chain,” that vague industrial catchall, and that the pandemic triggered an unprecedented surge in demand. That’s all true. But today, New York ’s James D. Walsh brings news of a factor that has received virtually no attention and in all likelihood is exacerbating the shortage. A drugmaker on Long Island that claims to make 20 percent of the country’s generic ADHD meds says it has been wrongfully shut down by the DEA. It’s a complex story involving the collateral damage of the opioid epidemic, the federal quota process for schedule-II raw chemicals, and a Wonka-like tour through a factory with machines capable of cranking out 400,000 tablets an hour. For now, those devices are gathering dust.

—Nick Summers, features editor, New York     

The Empty Adderall Factory A drugmaker’s feud with the DEA is exacerbating the ADHD meds crisis — at a rate of 600 million missing doses a year.

Photo: Thomas Prio
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