Provigil – Modafinil Information

Its little wonder that when British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced to the world that cannabis user figures were in a gentle but perceptible rise, she knew exactly what she was talking about, and was absolutely sure of her facts.

Apparently, offender numbers have shown a marked rise over the last four years even though according to the governments own board of expert advisors, cannabis use has dropped since it was intially declassified to a class C substance back in 2004. Confused?

According to the government, this rise in offences is due to how the police were able to deal with people found in possession of cannabis under the new class C category. Which begs the question; what difference does that make exactly?

Of course the real reason cannabis enforcement is higher than it has been for many years is as a result of the public relations campaign the government have undertaken in the run up to the ill-advised reclassification which took place in January of 2009.

Lets face it if you influence a nations press to write about wellington boots every day for two years at the end of the campaign wellington boot sales are going to be showing a healthy up-turn. Its not called public relations for nothing. Just ask Julie Myerson.

So its fair to assume with all of the news coverage regarding prescription drugs such as narcolepsy treatment Provigil and ADD treatment Ritalin, its fair to assume the same thing is going to happen. The numbers of people who are using these drugs, (and who are finding themselves in trouble for doing so illegally, or ‘off-label’ as our American cousins quaintly like to call it) is going to increase.

At the top of the pile currently is the anti-narcoleptic Provigil, made by US pharmaceutical giant Cephalon. A company which employs around 3000 employees and is said to be worth just under $5 billion US dollars, and on a personal note its worth mentioning I didn’t even know what Provigil was until two weeks ago, and now I really want some.

Cephalon has been in the news recently regarding a number of patent disputes, after a number of smaller pharma’s decided to create their own versions of Cephalon’s brain drug Provigil (generic name Modafinil).

In 2003 Cephalon took a number of these drug companies to court over patent infringements. Surprisingly Cephalon was unsuccessful and had to negotiate outside of the courts. In a bid to recoup some of their losses from Modafinil, Cephalon instigated a number of licensing deals to cover future manufacture of a drug which was being marketed so aggressively even the US military was buying it in by the container load in a bid to keep its exhausted fighter pilots in the air.

From this point forth the marketing ‘focus’ was moved from being an anti-narcoleptic, to being a “stay awake” mood brightener, and in 2007 the company was hit with an intoxicating fine of $425 million dollars for illegal marketing practices relating to off-label promotion of modafinil, (there’s that term ‘off-label’ again).

Today Provigil/Modafinil continues to dominate the prescription drug news, and for a number of different reasons.

On the one hand we hear of students, doctors, truck drivers etc. Anyone in fact who works long hours or night-shifts, visiting their doctor and asking for Provigil for their ‘narcolepsy’. Apparently all it takes is a straight face while you ask for it, and your wish is my command. Or rather your doctors command.

Provigil/Modafinil is being prescribed by the truck load, and even the driver of the truck delivering it is most-likely on Provigil too.

But the whole distasteful saga has taken something a sinister turn of late.

From being hailed as a wonder drug on its creation, it now appears all of those students and truckers merrily crunching Provigil tic-tacs in between chain-drinking cups of espresso, may be getting addicted.

To a drug which was supposed not to affect the part of the brain involved in the reward-chain? How does that work?

The big marketing angle for Provigil was the fact it tip-toed around the brains dopamine receptors, where as other stimulants such as Methylphenidate, AKA hard-assed amphetamine based ADD/ADHD treatment Ritalin, stamped all over the dopamine receptors with hobnail boots on, giving the user the uncomfortable ‘crash landing’ as they came down off their 48 hour drug-induced stay-awake-athon.

Anyone who has overdosed on strong coffee whilst going without sleep will know the feeling of getting ‘the jitters’ all too well.

But now it appears all that good news which was released on the initial release of provigil, could well have been wrong. So much for clinical trials.

But not to worry, because as luck would have Cephalon is about to bring a new, safer drug to market, called Nuvigil, and at this stage if you can see a pattern forming here, have another cup of coffee to reward yourself, and read on.

Nuvigil, (generic name Amodafinil) is a new flavour of Provigil which received FDA aproval in the US on June 15th 2007, and before rushing out to buy yourself a chemistry set and knocking up your own version, Cephalon have secured this patent until 2023 so don’t even go there.

Apparently Amodafinil is a ’stimulant-like’ drug which is being aimed as a treatment for bi-polar depression, conditions associated with schizophrenia, as well as chronic fatigue syndrome associated with Parkinsons disease and MS, amongst a great many others.

Far be it for me, a simple truck driver with very red eyes to point fingers, but I do find it something of a coincidence that with a new drug to find a market for, all of a sudden the super-safe Provigil, is no longer super-safe. Far from it in fact, and a quick ‘Google’ will turn up all sorts of ‘if’s buts and maybes’s’, without actually telling us the information we need.

Is Provigil dangerous and addictive, or is it not?

The truth of the matter is, it doesn’t matter.

There has been so much news coverage regarding Provigil, a drug which generates around $500 million US every year, that its markets are safe. If this wasn’t the case there would be no illicit heroin market lets face it?

But the real issue here, is the readiness of the worlds press to undertake global marketing and publicity for a product which is by its creators own admission, unsafe, as they can’t tell the public whether they will become addicted or not. Only that they might, (or might not).

Little wonder then, that the world is currently in the teeth of a prescription drug epidemic which grows exponentially year on year, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.

In the meantime, we have hard and fast evidence regarding a cure for a large number of cancers, which the press simply refuse to cover, and the government won’t let us have access to, even though the drug in question has never been credibly linked to a single death..ever.

There’s no doubting the pharmaceutical industry does a fantastic job in improving the quality of life for many millions of people every single year. But the fact their products are readily available on a million websites, and to absolutely anyone who has access to a credit card number is no accident.

Even worse is the fact government’s seem ill-prepared to anything about this, whilst in the meantime sending over-zealous police forces in to kick peoples doors down simply for growing a cannabis plant or two.

Something’s just not right about it all and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Provigil-RX.Info