Sunday, June 08, 2008

Street Value of Psychiatric Medications


StevebMD asked: "Is there a way to find out the "street value" of various psych meds in different cities? We know that benzos and opioids are highly valued, but I'm curious about other things like antipsychotics and sleep meds."

So I did some googling and did not find much. I even went on erowid.com, but couldn't find much there, either. So, I thought I'd set up a little database for people to enter what they know about the street value of, say, a 100mg pill of Seroquel.


Now, I am NOT trying to encourage these sorts of illicit transactions (you do know that it is a federal offense to sell a controlled prescription drug, right?). Indeed, the more we become aware of the potential for diversion of the drugs we prescribe, the more we can guard against it.


So, please complete the following form for any medications you may have knowledge of (either from asking your patients or from your own personal knowledge). Include your zip code so that I can set up a Google Map of all the entries. Once we have a number of datapoints, I will add the map to this post.









[View Database]

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I was substitute teaching in "special ed" I heard one kid (age 14-15) offer another kid $10 per pill for his Vicodin that was prescribed for a broken arm. I am betting the kid with the broken arm sold it and suffered from pain with a fat wallet. Other kids jumped in and it looked like there was going to be a bidding war for the meds. These are KIDS. However, some are kids with police monitoring ankle bracelets because they have already been arrested and others have severe enough behavioral problems (like beating up another student or a teacher) to land them in a special school. Clink Shrink's future clients if somebody does not get through to them! Zipcode 94519

Roy said...

I intentionally left out most of the narcotics, as we know there is a street value and we psychiatrists aren't prescribing a lot of this (some, but not a lot).

CanadaHolly said...

Over on ADDforums.com, there is a running conversation in several threads on the problem of how to avoid being tapped for pills by friends, roommates or even casual acquaintances. It's hard to resist a desperate friend who's sure he could pass if only he had the magic pill, just this once. Theft is also a big problem, even between spouses and family. Secrecy is the only way, apparently, but it's hard for most people to keep such a secret, much less high school or college kids with impulse control issues.

Anonymous said...

I take garlic oil, fish oil, and when i get a cold i have a little port (fortified wine) but that's it. Don't like pills and totally alergic (in the 'terrified catagory actually) of injections. I buy my pills at the supermaket.

Information wise, that's the best i can do.

Cheers... roses

Anonymous said...

Wow! How do you find these cute toys for the blog?
dinah.

Roy said...

dinah-wait until you see what Clink and I have up our sleeves for Grand Rounds... mwa-ha-ha

Anonymous said...

I think you should get them to include this in core CPI and have it tracked and find out which types of drugs do best in booms and which in busts.

Awake and Dreaming said...

one of my ACT clients was selling her lorazepam for somewhere between 1 and 10 dollars. It drove me crazy that I couldn't figure out which, the number seemed to fluctuate, but perhaps what she got for it was fluctuating that much too. We were giving them to her on a daily basis, so she was selling them 3 at a time. Our psychiatrist finally took her off all oral meds and left her just on a two week anti psychotic injection because she was selling everything for crack.

Despite sitting down with clients and trying, I never was quite able to understand the market for anti psychotics. Because we did a lot of daily observed meds, the clients who were likely to sell them, really didn't have a lot of opportunity. That being said, one of my clients almost died from an olanzipine OD which she got off the street. We're fairly sure she paid for it in food or sex though. We discovered a variety of meds in her apartment because she is a person who'll take anything. HIV meds, Anti psychotics she's already on, narcotics, anything that comes in a pill, she'll swallow.

I think a lot of the trade in meds might come in the form of bartering for sex, food or drugs as opposed to each pill having a straight up street value, especially with the anti psychotics and ssris.

Battle Weary said...

The $6 for 1, 10mg valium was about 17 years ago...could be much higher now. My ex, a "recovered" addict with (at the time) 5 years clean and sober, was selling 30 of these a month to 3 different friends! Only one of many reasons this is an ex.

Anonymous said...

There is a market for antipsychotics because they calm you down, or bring you down, whichever you happen to be in need of. I doubt anyone buys them to keep hallucinations at bay but rather for the sedative effect. Plenty of people say they don't like to be knocked out but lots of others are looking to be knocked out and the antipsychotics can make you feel very calm when you are very jangled.

Dr. Pink Freud said...

Some links of interest:

http://www.ixion.demon.co.uk/benzodiazepines.htm

http://www.higheredcenter.org/pubs/factsheets/ritalin.html

http://druglaw.typepad.com/drug_law_blog/2007/07/recreational-us.html

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000401/2121.html

Anonymous said...

The Google map is broken... trying to fix it.

Anonymous said...

these prices are too low for my area... i dont think there's actually any way to determine a "price" unless you factor in who's being sold to. you need to keep in mind how desperate people are. i know someone who found a white rock on the street and sold it to some really desperate guy for 40 bucks.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone tell me if there is a street value for Kepra? Am working with someone who is on 1500 mgm twice a day and seeking prescriptions.