Running out of resources for legal drugs.

>/SQT/

>>8687615
They will substitute. Our bodies use bromide when iodine is unavailable.
We could expect millions of suicide if society lost it prescription narcotics.

>>8687615
Surely all the chemical elements needed are still present in the environment, requiring energy to reclaim?

>>8687615
I've been told they use plants to make them, but I'm not sure if that applies for all of these products.

we're not mining drugs out of the ground OP, they're organic chemicals

also we're not consuming drugs all that fast compared to say oil

I'm pretty sure the usual process is:

1. discover naturally-occuring drug in a plant or something
2. figure out how to synthesize it in a cost-effective manner
3. mass production

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-brief-description-of-the-mass-production-process-for-pharmaceutical-drugs

>>8687615
there is still more oil buried in the ground than has ever been used throughout human history

"peak oil'" is a meme, and red herring. it refers only to the "economically extractable oil available at the time". meaning the oil that oil companies want to get out, because it is the easy enough to get that it will turn a profit in the current economic conditions.

it does not mean the earth will run out of oil. the earth will probably never run out of oil

>>8687615
Chemistry is incredibly flexible. If a method for producing a pharmaceutical becomes cost ineffective, alternate methods become available. Generally either a new drug will hit the market, or a new method of making said drug will become available. In either event, this no longer is an issue. That said, most pharmaceuticals are organic molecules, and there is currently a LOT of research being done on creating pharmaceuticals, or at least building blocks for them, from living matter.

>>8688779
>the earth will probably never run out of oil
So you could say that you don't believe those resources are finite...

>>8688779
>the earth will probably never run out of oil
GTFO pol

>>8687615
Bullshit. Most drugs are entirely organic. If we run out of C, H, N, O, P, S we have bigger problems. In addition, drugs don't use much mass.

>>8687615
The answer is obvious.
Massive end of the world orgy.
That way we can spread the death quickly.