Illegal Drug Market Attracts Entrepreneurs

Everyone knows that a lot of perfectly good unused prescription drugs sit around in home medicine cabinets. The bureaucratic response to this problem has been to have the Drug Enforcement Administration coordinate the once-a-year National Take Back Day. This year, everyone in America can turn in unused prescription drugs on October 29^th between 10am and 2pm at select state and local law enforcement agencies—no questions asked! The DEA promises to destroy the drugs. It has not promised that security cameras will be turned off, and there does not seem to have been any bureaucratic effort to consider whether pill reuse could be made safe.

In contrast, consider the level of effort demonstrated by for-profit entrepreneurs in illegal for-profit market drug recycling programs.

Their target: bored teenagers. Jobs are hard to come by thanks to U.S. labor laws and the severe recession, so many teens have a lot of free time without the structure that a job provides. Ferocious enforcement of the 21-year-old drinking age generally locks teenagers out of social spaces other than shopping malls, coffee houses, and movie theaters which anyway cost money, close early, and tend to be boring. Teens craving an inexpensive activity free from parental supervision often end up at parties in temporarily unoccupied private homes where they may drink to excess, smoke easily accessible “medical” marijuana or pop random prescription drugs at “Pharm parties.” Pharm party participants reach into a bowl of assorted prescription drugs and take whatever comes to hand.

In this particular case, a high school student, we’ll call him Bob, had his wisdom teeth extracted over spring break. It was no secret. His friends knew it was happening and, because people will talk, so, presumably, did friends of friends.

Many kids in high school have their wisdom teeth out. The level of painkillers any given person will need is impossible to predict. Doctors prescribe a standard dose of painkillers and some students have pills left over. Sports injuries requiring pain killers are also common. Contacting all of the kids known to have temporary access to prescription pain killers requires extensive local knowledge within individual high schools, disposable cell phones, persistence, and a little organization.

A month after spring break, Bob got a text message on his cell. It asked if he had any Vicodin to sell. The offer price was $4 a pill. He said no, but the query itself suggests an organized effort to capture unused drugs in the high school population.

Which effort is likely to be more successful, a DEA drop-off day at police stations or a profit-oriented entrepreneur who has done his market research to the extent of obtaining unpublished cell phone numbers for a small group of people who are likely to have the drugs he is seeking?

The same question applies to efforts to reduce health care costs in general. Who will do a better job of controlling costs, people who benefit from attempts to minimize spending while preserving health because they are spending their own money, or bureaucrats who are told to reduce spending by rationing care, no questions asked?

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