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Aderall Or Nothing: Anatomy of the Great Amphetamine Drought
pigrabbitbear writes "To prevent hoarding of materials and their potential for theft and illicit use, the Drug Enforcement Agency sets quotas for the chemical precursors to drugs like Adderall. The DEA projects the need for amphetamine salts, then produces and distributes the materials to pharmaceutical companies so that they can produce their drugs. But with the number of prescriptions for Adderall jumping 13 percent in the past year, pharmaceutical companies claim that the quotas are no longer sufficient for supplying Americans with their Adderall. The DEA contends that their quotas do, in fact, meet demands, and that any shortages arise from pharmaceutical companies selectively producing only certain, typically name-brand and more expensive versions of ADHD medications."
Is there no enterprise you can't utterly fuck up?
Perhaps we should have this dept dissolved.
At the very least, can we start a movement to find constitutional justification for such a Federal Agency?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Considering how those that are actually being prescribed Aderall and need it to function are the most likely to be affected by this, I do.
Anyone notice that the shortage of adderall and the rise of the TEA party happened about the same time?
Coincidence? I think not ....
FWIW, I was a pharmacy tech while working through HS and college, and the entire time, we never had such bad problems with backorders on any product (with the possible exception of when albuterol inhalers were required to switch to CFA free, another massive screwup).
so that we can track their killing sprees, but not let enough medication be produced for law abiding citizens. Smart move.
I doubt the DEA has a lab somewhere that's creating this material... or maybe they do...
When did the DEA get into the chemical production business?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The DEA imposes an artificial scarcity on a chemical, and the drug companies crank that though their models to maximize profit. What's the surprise here? That the DEA doesn't have any non-partisan economists on staff?
Yes, the total amount of the raw material might be enough for the demand, but people have been making fortunes profiting from local shortages since, like, forever.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I agree. When my son was in grade school, one of the teachers mentioned he should be tested for ADHD. My wife and I both agreed to take him to his doctor but we also agreed it was a load of crap. (Since been proven over time since he's at university and doing fine.)
It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
I am officially gone from
Legalize and Tax. No more war on drugs.
I'm 48, and I don't use any recreational drugs (including alcohol). But I've long held that legalizing and simply taxing all drugs would eliminate far more problems than drugs currently cause.
Drug dealers? No need. Buy what you want at the local pharmacy. Made by real labs, with quality control standards. Warning label on the bottle: "This drug may kill you. Use at your own risk." No illegal pipeline if what you can buy at CVS is cheaper and better quality than from the guy on the street. How much of organized crime is based on the drug trade? From import to manufacturing to distribution to people stealing crap to feed their habit?
Dirty Needles? Nope. Buy those when you are picking up your consumer grade heroin. There go HIV and HEP-C transmission rates.
Drug addicts? Use the previously mentioned tax money on education and rehab programs. Even a hefty tax on the drugs would still leave them at a lower cost than street drugs.
Never happen. There are too many vested interests in keeping the "war on drugs" alive.
Every single person I've met (which are dozens) that regularly takes Adderall clearly does not "need" it to function, but they may think they do and exhibit classic signs of addiction.
However, medicines like this fit into most medical/social science methodology in that, if someone starts taking Adderall, of course they are more productive and may even feel better (e.g. euphoria) etc, so measuring those effects usually produces positive results.
Interceding variables like having doctors prescribing amphetamine salts like candy seem to be ignored in these methodologies.
How much suffering is the DEA willing to inflict for the, pardon the metaphor, pipe dream of a drug-free America?
You can't swing a dead cat without hearing about under-medicating pain and how that one of the primary drivers of that is physician fear of a DEA investigation or worse, losing their license to prescribe.
Now it's this -- and while I'm sure there's some pharma holdback for brand-name drugs, that wouldn't matter if the DEA wasn't so restrictive of the chemistry.
So now we have another group of people at minimum inconvenienced at at maximum with negative health consequences because of the relentless pursuit of an unobtainable moral goal.
Thanks, DEA.
We need to legalize ALL currently illegal recreational drugs in the USA, but put them under tight regs. In addition, we need to allow ZERO IMPORTS OR EXPORTS on these. Likewise, require that all of the precursors be manufactured here as well. Why? Because it destroys gangs and drug lords the world over. Once this is done, then illegal activities will stop. As to the drug use, it will remain. However, it will not be pushed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The dea and war on drugs has only been around for about 90 years and has caused nothing but problems. by your own reasoning we should go back to a state where the governents don't try to dictate what we should and should not consume. Seems reasonable to me, I would like ot have juridstiction over my own body! I mean seriously, next they'll be telling us we can't consume milk if it doesn't come from a farm that homogenizes the milk.
In general, they were labeled "troublemakers", "bullies", "class clowns" or any other of a number of meaningless epithets that did nothing to help them get ahead and allowed them to just play their role in society before becoming some blue-collar laborer or small time criminal.
Yes, everyone you've met on Adderall (that you know of...) are addicted to it. Everyone I've met on Adderall can fly like Superman. What does anecdotal evidence (especially that which is uncited) have to do with it again?
Truly spoken like someone who doesn't have a medical need for it. How very civic minded of you being so willing to let other people suffer so that you don't have to worry that people you don't know might take a drug they don't need.
I'm guessing you're also OK with people not being properly treated for their debillitating cluster headaches or chronic pain as well (as long as you don't have those conditions, naturally).
Yes, they just didn't function. Kinda like before antibiotics, people with serious infections just died.
Sure, there are abuses, and it's over-prescribed. However, there are people who actually do need it to function well and they should be able to get it. The DEA needs to butt out of medical practice.
At least in the US, teachers are not supposed to do this. Teachers should bring up issues with the counselors, and it is up to the counselors to decide whether or not to advise the parents. Many people are diagnosed with ADD and find ways to cope without meds. I think that's wonderful. Some try to cope without meds, and it just results in the school system wanting the kid expelled. If all that must be done to avoid expulsion, or increase performance, and improve one's own satisfaction with performance is to take a pill every day, then I think that's just wonderful too. I do agree that stimulant treatments for ADD/ADHD are overprescribed. Treatments should be considered very carefully on a case-by-case basis, and many times parents/doctors/insurance is not interested in putting forth the needed effort.
Your personal anecdotes may be well founded. However, I have a personal anecdote too. I have a child who is on Addreall and I can attest to how much better it makes him function. Since the last 2 years of taking it, he has made leaps and bounds in his ability to speak and articulate thoughts. Without the drug, he reverts to extremely erratic behavior, his speech suffers, and sometimes he unintentionally hurts himself. Recently, the Adderall shortage caught us off guard once, and we had a fairly wild weekend with him (not the only time actually). So yes, he is a clear case of where the drug works as intended.
That people abuse this drug upsets me to no end. I'm reminded of it every time I have to go through the prescription refill process.
For the record, I'm not one of the parents that would dose up their kid just to get him to sit still and be quiet. Far from it. I'm certain without it, he'd be held back or in a special needs school.
Hecubas
That's the worst thing to me - we're depriving people who need it to prevent some folks from using it for fun/addiction/whatever. Never a worse reason to do that.
Considering how those that are actually being prescribed Aderall and need it to function are the most likely to be affected by this, I do.
I read somewhere that only about two in an hundred need ADHD drugs to function (which is still arguably a significant number in a 300m population) but that it's way overprescribed, to upwards of one in five in US schools. (The report did not say how this statistic translates to the general population, so it could be misleading.)
So, just spitballing here, but maybe the shortage could be at least partially alleviated by prescribing the drugs less casually. For instance, I give you personal permission to take the drugs the school prescribed for my kid, which I declined. (The school looked at her and said she's ADHD and recommended drugs. The doctor agreed to prescribe with no testing, which made me suspicious. I had her formally tested, and she's not ADHD. She's severely dyslexic. I'd like to personally thank the school system and medical community for screwing that up.)
Note, I am not one of those loonies who believe the drugs are unnecessary. You say you need them to function, and I believe you. But clearly at least some are taking them who don't need to, and that has to negatively affect demand to some degree.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Here is the link for you. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/13/feds-shut-down-amish-farm-selling-fresh-milk/
There's good evidence that all these "attention-deficit" drugs are only of real benefit for a few weeks, after which continued use only makes sense for avoiding the sometimes-serious withdrawal symptoms. In other words, while use of aphetamines for ADD appeared to make medical sense once upon a time, more recent research shows that they whole thing is a bit of a fraud being run for the profit of the drug companies, with no net contribution at all to public well-being, or student performance, or anything else beyond maintaining a large, profitable population of addicts. Sure if you stop taking it you feel worse for a while, and if you start again you feel better. That's what addiction is.
If you're an adult taking them yourself, make your own judgment. If you're cooperating with a school in dosing your kid though, seriously consider setting a time and place for the kid to go cold turkey. You're doing nobody a real favor by keeping your kid on speed.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I don't know about Adderall (I'm on a Ritalin-based med), but I do know that after being diagnosed with ADHD well into my 30s, and being put on mediation for it for the first time, it makes anywhere from a minor to a major difference on any given day. There are definitely other factors that play into it, but on the occasions when I've had to go stretches without my meds (usually when I have a sinus infection and need to take decongestents - pseudoephedrine and amphetamines are a great way to give yourself bad tachycardia...) I can often feel the difference after a couple of days. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "every kid who acts up must have ADHD" bandwagon because I think that at least 50% of those are probably just kids being kids, but for those people who truely do need meds to help them deal with messed up brain chemistry it really makes a difference.
And as to the question of "need", I'm sure we all could get by without taking meds for ADHD, the same way we don't "need" vaccines, antibiotics, painkillers, electricity, indoor plumbing, etc. There are plenty of societies that get along without all of those things, but I doubt you would want to live without them if you had the option of living with them instead. Are there people who abuse ADHD meds? Of course. But that doesn't mean that everyone who uses them abuses them...
For some reason this reminds me of Breaking Bad. The locals are having a hard time buying precursors at pharmacies because the regs have made them scarce, but in walks "Heisenberg" and he starts cranking out the stuff by the barrel using industrial equipment.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I don't think anyone disagrees that there are cases where it actually does help and is needed. What people are saying is that its use is too widespread and most of the children on it just need parenting and discipline. Your child may well be one of those who do actually need it. The question is how do you discern one group from the other and prevent those who don't need it from being placed on it.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In my granddaughter's high school about 10% of the students are on some kind of ADHD or ADD drug. Many don't take it because they don't like the side effects. The result is that there is a ton of this stuff freely available to students who shouldn't have it. As she describes it, there are students doing lines of Adderoll in the cafeteria. Teachers watch this and do nothing. I am normally fairly liberal about legalizing drugs for adults, but this creeps me out.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
The only reason this is a so-called disease is because Big Pharma makes tons of money on trying to medicate the children of America. What if this was not a "disability" but actually just the next step in evolution of human beings? What if there is actually nothing wrong at all? I believe ADHD isn't a malady.
I agree. And since that's all the DEA does, it should be put down.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
I don't think anyone disagrees that there are cases where it actually does help and is needed. What people are saying is that its use is too widespread and most of the children on it just need parenting and discipline. Your child may well be one of those who do actually need it. The question is how do you discern one group from the other and prevent those who don't need it from being placed on it.
What you DON'T do is give that decision to a governmental agency that has a narrow focus on just saying no. While there are legitimate social and medical arguments for and against amphetamine (and other drug) use, letting the DEA essentially control it is a very, very bad way to go.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What did people do before Adderall then, simply not function? It's only been around for around 30 years.
My child is not ADHD, but was diagnosed as such by the school system (long story) and as a result I did quite a bit of research and talked to parents of kids and to adults who had the affliction.
Without drugs there are coping skills but how they work depends on how bad your case is. For instance, a co-worker who has a mild case, has a hard time communicating because he jumps around on topics and gets buried in sub-clauses. His coping skill is to put a finger down on the desk each time he shifts topics to remind himself to go back and complete the original topic.
As to how severe cases dealt with it without drugs, they'd often have a hard time getting good grades or staying employed despite high intelligence, feel ostracized and unappreciated, diagnosed as "discipline problems" and find themselves clients of the justice system. For those who really need the drugs, they really need the drugs.
There are a few careers (art, music, broadcasting) where ADHD isn't a deficit and may actually be an advantage. But it's not a safe bet.
If you need an example that may be easier to understand, for people who really need antidepressants (which are somewhat overprescribed also, in my opinion) really NEED them, because without the drugs, clinically depressed people really can not function. (Even *with* the drugs they may never be normal, but may at least be able to hold down a job.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yeah, well, it's not that they need it to function DISCLAIMER (I am presently on a similar medication), it's that they need it to function in the highly structured, monotonous "farmer" style society that we find ourselves. If there was a way for many of these people (and many people with ADD do fine without meds) to make a living that didn't rely on organization, attention to detail, etc., then we wouldn't need the meds. I myself am trying to transition myself away from my concerta-requiring job and into a non-concerta-requiring job as we speak.
As far as addiction goes, what of it? People are addicted, physically addicted, to coffee, and other substances all the time. It's not the addiction but the psycho-physico-emotional harm that it might do that is the problem. No one worries that people with bipolar disorder are "addicted" to their meds.
From an epistemological standpoint, in science many times we make observations that contradict empirical results and as such must control for these variables.
This sounds a bit like those folks who believe "science" is a religion, and something is true because "science says so," regardless of the fact they do not understand the method applied.
So one day he stopped taking his Lithium and started coming to parties and being social. By sophomore year, he had friends, and was doing a lot better than he was with his medicine for his "social anxiety." So it looks like he was one of the folks over-prescribed, and maybe he stopped being so passionate/etc when he was on Lithium, and his parents liked that when he was at home with them.
My mom was hooked on Xanax the last few years of her life, that she got from her doctor, who tried to "treat" her depression and social anxiety/etc. Instead, it made her happy to stay at home and watch TV and be antisocial. But since she was happier and insistent on taking more, the doctor saw good results, and kept prescribing her this medicine that just made her an artificially happy person with no desire for friends or fulfillment. But it made her a different person and I don't believe the net effects were positive.
Again, this is all anecdotal, but I've seen anecdotal evidence like this too often to ignore. And I don't have big money like pharmaceutical companies to fund a proper scientific study. If you'd like to pay for this, let me know! :)
The problem there is with the doctors, and I've actually encountered this problem myself. During my first year of college I stopped taking my adderall out of negligence (would forget to take it mostly). Then, on one occasion I decided to take it. I'm not sure what to call what I experienced, but I found myself shaking and rooted to my seat, unable to function the moment I tried to work. After that I swore never to take it again. Fast forward a few months and I've dropped out because, well stopping taking meds in your first year of college when you've been taking them since 5th grade is not the best idea. I go to see a psychologist because at that point I was a bit of a train wreck. One of the first things the psychologist insists is that I go back on the meds, ignoring my protests (she was claiming that the reaction I had was related to some outside factor, not the meds themselves). I would never sell them and because I was not in my parents' best graces so I had to take them, but if I was a rebellious teen looking for a quick buck I could easily see myself selling those pills. Doctors need to realize that these meds have serious side effects beyond hearing things/seeing things/thoughts of suicide/etc.
Fuck Beta
And letting the free market, i.e. the people who stand to gain financially from selling speed to kids, decide who needs it is surely the better idea, no? Seriously, the US are undertaking an experiment drugging their kids to fit them into the mold of perceived normality that is pretty much unprecedented on a historical scale these days. If anything, the DEA is at fault for not smacking down on the current prescription practices.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It's not just a central planning problem, like having the Agriculture Department subsidizing ethanol production or the CDC guessing wrong about what kind of flu vaccine we need some years. It's mostly a political correctness problem, with the DEA trying to interfere with people using a popular type of drug (as a followon to their War on Cold Medicine that makes us have to use fake sudafed instead of the real stuff.)
What? You're one of those Republicans who thinks "Political Correctness" is a only _Liberal_ problem? Wrong...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, I'm a project manager for the media section of a text-book publisher. It's the project management that I am bad at, so I'm going to find a job where project management isn't the primary job skill. I like computers and media and education, so I may stay in this industry, but move into a position that's more about problem-solving or working directly with content (more editor-y or programmer-y). Something that would let me work at my own pace more.
;) ). Attention and follow-through, and detail-oriented work are part of any job, but there are some that are "better" than others for people with ADD. Like, if you're good at sales or writing, or whatever, you can often hire an assistant to handle the attention-heavy stuff. ADD types often do well in creative fields, too, as the "creative" thought process seems to be similar to the ADD thought process. So much so, in fact, that a recent study has shown that ADD drugs can eliminate people's ability to have "AHA!" insights when trying to solve puzzles. This has been documented by researchers and I can personally report it's true for me.
Sales is a great place for people with ADD as they are often personable and funny (perhaps I'm projecting
I think it's more likely to indicate (as someone who graduated college in 2006) the pattern I saw in my school -- find someone with an Adderall prescrption, pay them for a pill, and stay up all night studying so you can spend more time partying. I don't think these kids would fail out of school, just school would be harder.
However there probably is a fraction of a percent of students who really need it.
Regardless, I think all of this should be legal and if you are a college student you can decide what crazy pills you want to take. It's just children that are given these things in mass amounts, who themselves and their parents have little knowledge of their action, that I'm concerned about. No meth for kids please!!! Most parents would not serve their 8 year old a triple-lattee from Starbucks, why would they give meth?
act of god is a legal term, irrespective of one's belief in a deity.
If memory serves, the French-derived term force majeure indicates basically the same thing, only without the religious overtones.
Ah, yes, apparently force majeure is a superset of act of god. FWIW.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The current methotrexate (chemo drug for children) shortage is due to suppliers opting to make more expensive drugs on their manufacturing equipment. For some reason, the free market isn't working to keep supplying methotrexate, or numerous other generics. Just google "drug shortage" for over 100 examples.
Well, hopefully they all die. That way demand will dry up.
The crowd at a Republican debate cheered this approach for uninsured sick people in need of health care.
Well, one or two people in the crowd, but even at that I agree that was still a WTF?! moment.
I found it to be not a "WTF" moment, and instead more a "wow, they're being really honest about their 'fuck everyone else' attitude..."
I'm no fan of either of the major political parties in the US -- both appear to be full of unprincipled mercenaries perfectly happy to sell the country down the shitter for the right price. That said, the Republican party seems much more the party of bald-faced sociopaths, actively courting like-minded authoritarians, selling the theme of anti-social, anti-public policy, and cultivating and capitalizing upon their audience's near-complete lack of cognitive dissonance. "I've got mine; screw you!" could well be their rallying cry.
As widely reported in the US media, such as the NY Times article, "Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It", the common people self-identifying as Republican are very often the very people being hurt by the espoused Republican approach to policy. More disturbingly, they've been so successfully hoodwinked that these very people have absorbed the Republican talking points about dismantling the very systems that keep themselves afloat, and happily parrot them back to anyone that asks.
That's some masterful propagandizing. I doff my cap, I really do.
So then having even a few people in a crowd, let alone a whole room, cheering for the idea that all those sick people will die off and thereby "solve" the problem of healthcare, that's just more evidence of how successful the pro-corporate, pro-wealth, anti-public idea machine has been.
All this really just helps the rest of us still capable of more rational thought to see the signs of where this might go. And it's not a pretty outlook.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
(The school looked at her and said she's ADHD and recommended drugs. The doctor agreed to prescribe with no testing, which made me suspicious. I had her formally tested, and she's not ADHD. She's severely dyslexic. I'd like to personally thank the school system and medical community for screwing that up.)
They're terrible at diagnosing unusual or obscure things that look like things they know how to treat. With that said: it might ge that your daughter has vision tracking/fusion problems, which are sometimes a cause of dyslexia. My wife's a vision therapist (and dyslexic) and she's helped a lot of kids diagnosed with dyslexia to vastly improve their reading speed and math abilities by helping them learn to train their eyes. A lot of dyslexia cases are caused by processing problems, but a lot of them can be treated or at least minimized with vision therapy, so it might be worthwhile to your daughter to at least take her to a vision therapist and see if there's any likelihood of improvement. (And age doesn't matter much: one of her patients is 84 and is slowly improving from double vision problems she's had for years.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
But you don't need it to function. If you think that, then you're an addict and you should lay off it for a while.
Define function. If you mean sitting on my ass mindlessly flipping through the channels while the day disappears, then yeah you're right. If you mean meeting deadlines, staying (reasonably) organized and actually getting something useful accomplished in a given day, you could not be more wrong.
I occasionally take medication vacations (usually when I'm on vacation) and I'll be blunt, I'm usually disappointed with myself afterwards for not meeting any of the goals I had set for myself during the time off. I wind up getting distracted by the latest shiny thing to enter my life, and never get that hike done, change the oil in my car, etc...
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Ultimitely working for what you get is better for the human spirit than handouts. And there really is a trade off between the amount of handouts and the difficulty of self-sufficiency. But it's easier to just accuse people of greed and meanness than think things through, I guess.
It sounds like you're trying to put words in my mouth. At the bare minimum, you seem to have understood my post to mean "Free handouts for everybody, permanently!" That's not my point.
My point in my previous post is that the Republican party espouses certain policy goals that have been harmful to the working poor, and the party's strategists have been very successful in selling an emotional ideal of independent, belligerent, strike-it-rich boot-strapping to many of these working poor, such that they pledge their support of Republican policy even as it destroys their livelihoods. I've watched this dynamic play out for decades, and it fascinates and worries me.
In response to your post here, I quite agree with your initial statement, that working for something is generally the better option for an individual's psychological well-being. This is borne out in my own experience and from others that I've known, where people who have had to work for things in their lives tend to have a more grounded sense of worth, be hard workers, and strive to succeed; whereas people who have had things just given to them tend to not appreciate what they have, be listless, and avoid striving if possible. Of course, this is a gross generalization, it's just my own observation, YMMV, and all that.
However, cutting off social safety net funding is not a very effective way to help people work for their keep, especially when the jobs just aren't there, and instead will do much more to destabilize society and hurt people already down on their luck. And that's just a recipe for misery and violence.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Slightly different formula? It isn't even metabolized in the same manner... I was on Adderall for 15 years and switched to Vyvanse about a year ago. I now take one tablet that balances me out for the entire day. I can sleep while medicated, I can jump into a book, I can spend time with friends, I can code android apps for clients from 8am to 8pm followed by dinner with friends/family (all the while w/o a single emotional breakdown). I never need more and I never wish that I had taken less. Nothing that I just mentioned is possible with Adderall. How are you forming your opinion(s)? Certainly not from experience. Seriously, why would you even make such a bold claim as "vyvanse offers nothing over adderall to the patient." (???) Even if both of us are wrong, every patient is different. I understand the attraction of writing off new medications as means of new profits. Vyvanse is certainly bringing in the big bucks. And it was strategically released as the patent on Adderall XR expired. But it's also helping a lot of people like me who never responded well to Adderall but also had no other good choices (yes, I've tried them all). I am in NO way defending drug companies, this is simply my story. Finally, if you don't believe me, make friends who have meds. Borrow a tab or two. Come back and tell me that the difference was "slight."
But personally, I don't like the idea of being an enabler of such behavior as we watch people destroy their own lives and that of their children through neglect.
But you are cool with telling other people how to live their lives, because you know what is best for them, I see.
I have never used drugs. I don't even like taking aspirin. I don't drink coffee or smoke and I rarely drink alcohol. But you know what? I am totally for decriminalization of drugs, because I believe that people should be allowed to make their own choices about how they live their lives. I know I am not wise enough of a person to be able tell people how to live their lives, and be correct. Part of living in a free country is allowing others to do things that we don't find to be appealing. You are failing to respect that other people might know what is best for themselves and govern their own lives.
Conservative, N - A concerned hypocrite who doesn't want government to interfere with their lives. They want the government to interfere with everyone else's.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!