Here's the press release where they brag about depriving sick people of their medicine:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm398499.htm
Apparently all the $5,000 ambulance charges aren't enough for Big Health Care. They have to stop people getting medicine outside of their airtight vertically-integrated monopoly, too. This is even more appalling than the drug war, because the result is not to stop people from getting high, but to stop sick people from getting better. The list of most common medications seized: "insulin, estrogen, bimatoprost, human chorionic gonadotropin, tramadol, tadalafil and sildenafil citrate". Note that none of these are scheduled, and none are abuse-able. The inclusion of "insulin, estrogen, bimatoprost" there is particularly sad. Insulin is critical for diabetes sufferers. Not having insulin can be life threatening, though it can be bought over the counter and replaced. The other two can't, unfortunately. Estrogen is a female hormone affecting almost every tissue in the body - women who can't produce it, such as menopausal and transgender women, need to take it every day or experience a mass of symptoms including depression, hot flashes, migraines, insomnia, and osteoporosis. My friend, who is transgender, tells me that she is terrified of going without estrogen for more than a few days, and she and many trans people she knows rely on online pharmacies to buy it. As for Bimatoprost it is used to prevent glaucoma from causing vision loss and eventually blindness. Glaucoma may be stopped with drugs like this, but the damage it causes cannot be reversed. Thus, taking this medication away is pretty much removing the only thing standing between glaucoma sufferers and vision loss and eventual blindness. None of their doublespeak about "the correct supply chain" comes close to justifying this.
I would like to suggest a darknet market that is less illegal than the big ones, but that will satisfy an important growing need of many Americans - readily available prescription drugs. And not just the oxy, xanax, adderall kind, but the unscheduled kinds - antibiotics, antidepressants, beta blockers, antipsychotics, estrogens, and so on. (side note: my friend was pointing out how the typical market has lots of people selling testosterone and like 15+ different analogs, precursors, brand names of testosterone, but you try to find some estrogen and it's near impossible) I've lost count of the number of times I knew exactly what $5 pill bottle I needed, but couldn't get it until I paid $100 to see a doctor. Or I lost a prescription, or just really could use a couple beta blockers to stop the shaking when giving a speech, but found out they only give them for high blood pressure. Overseas pharmacies are supposed to solve that, but by the time your antibiotics arrive in two weeks from half the world over, your stomach's healed itself. And now they're trying to take even that away. Imagine if you could get any medicine you need, in 2 days by priority mail at a competitive price, without dealing with the sketchy pharmacies in India that may or may not be counterfeit. Or, if you could take all the half-used prescription bottles you no longer need and get some extra cash while at the same time helping someone who needs them more. Yes, (as opposed to buying), selling them is a crime, but that's what the tor and bitcoin is for, and anyway, any police department that spends time and money tracking these sellers down is going to have to explain why they thought this was a better use of time than the 20+ markets full of people selling smack and meth. Having a market be exclusively for non-scheduled prescription drugs will make it the lowest priority market for police to investigate, and thus the safest.
So, what do people think of this idea? Create a market to get access to the ridiculous amount of medicine that's not scheduled, not abusable or addictive, but still prescription only for no goddamn reason. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a reason and that reason is doctors want more money.
I think this is a great idea. You should post this to r/bitcoin, as such a market would lend extra legitimacy to bitcoin as a grey market currency; it's not only a matter of black and white.
By the way, tramadol is very abusable. And very addictive. It's kinda crazy that's not controlled.