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Industrial small-molecule chemistry is extremely efficient. All of these drugs could be produced by the kiloton for small amounts of money if that was the objective. It would not require anything special.

We already see this with alcohol. Most liquor is tarted-up industrial ethanol, delivered by train tankers to the bottling plants, with some marketing and branding wrapped around it. Industrial ethanol is very inexpensive to produce, around $1/liter; the price of consumption alcohol is downstream of excise taxes and branding.

Cost is not a relevant factor. We can produce all of these chemicals for so little that it is a rounding error. This is a matter of policy.



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