Good Medicine, Bad Behavior: Drug Diversion in America

A modern drug cabinet today in America.

Introduction
For as long as there have been medicines and products aimed to heal injuries, cure diseases and relieve pain, there has been experimentation with overusing and abusing those products. From the rise of the patent medicine industry in the middle and late 1800s through to modern day scientifically-engineered prescription drugs, there have been good medicines, that because of bad behavior, have caused many negative results.

This exhibit presents a look back at America’s struggle in balancing the need to provide medications to improve the quality of life while working to prevent the diversion of those substances and the chemicals used to make them for illegal use. Federal, state and local governments have been battling with this issue for the better part of a century. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and its predecessor agencies have been at the forefront of combating the diversion of these controlled products for that whole time.

With the ever-increasing array of medications available for countless health issues and the potential for their abuse as well as recent government reports and studies showing an alarming increase in abuse rates, the rate of abuse or misuse of these products, Good Medicine, Bad Behavior exists to educate and increase public awareness of the potential for the abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medicines and encourage increased diligence by parents, educators, health care providers and law enforcement personnel to keep these products from being abused and diverted.