Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin, are weeks away from having one of their most controversial and addictive pain killers become generic - or in other words having a formula that other drug companies can use and sell with no brand name for less.
Think of it like Mr. Christie being the only baker able to sell OREO cookies for 10 years... and after 10 years of people becoming hooked on those snacks and paying a premium for the Mr. Christie factory to produce the worlds only authentic OREO cookie, the law allows other people to use the exact same recipe . All of a sudden, everyone with an oven and a sweet tooth is going to be baking the same cookies (adhering to health standards of course) and selling them for less than Mr. Christie did. Why for less? Because it may have cost them less to make, or they don't have a marketing budget like Mr. Christie's great ads on TV, and of course because of traditional economics: when a market is flooded with supply of something, the value of it (and the price) tend to drop.
Now here is where it gets a bit complicated: If Mr. Christie's cookies aren't available everywhere (because, for example, too many people are eating too many of them and becoming pre-diabetic), there is an opportunity for people to buy the cookies in one place (in this case, southern Ontario), and sell them where the hungry smackers cannot buy them (the US). Even worse, they are being passed around at all the wrong places (like parties) for all the wrong reasons (sugar rushes, as opposed to just being snacks), and it becomes very challenging to actually tell who is snacking on them and who is standing next to the dessert table eating OERO's by the row, or crushing them up and mixing them in Dairy Queen Blizzards.
There has been a lot of controversy around the use of pain killers like Oxycontin for treating Chronic Pain in patients, as drugs like them can be addictive and are generally regarded as difficult to monitor and having substantial impacts on patients lives. Purdue have recently released a new formula of the drug that is supposed to make it harder to abuse, but the question remains: will doctors prescribe their new formula, or will they offer patients the cheaper and more easily abusable alternative?
If President's Choice, and a host of other chocolate cookies with white centers can give us a bit of insight, it is pretty obvious that there will be a market for the cheaper products (because they still work well and we all can't afford the brand names) and, somewhat disappointingly to the bakers that made them and the families and friends that watch people use them for other purposes, these products may well be used in more creative ways than they were intended.