"The most widely sold drug in the world doesn't cure the diseases of the body but those of the mind. The drug is a tranquillizer (Valium and Librium) that has made up the fortune of Swiss firm Hoffman-Laroche. Here's the story as reported by Playboy: once upon a time, there was a group of white mice in one of Hoffman-Laroche's laboratory. The little animals were restless, and a researcher asked Doctor Leo Sternbach if he knew of a substance to calm them down. Sternbach suggested a derivative of benzodiazepine. The rest is recent history. One dose was enough to make the little animals calm down and co-operate with the researcher. The substance was then tested on lions and wild monkeys, and the results were equally successful. Someone from Hoffman-Laroche decided that a substance that could make lions and monkeys tame would have worked wonders on people as well. Hoffman-Laroche patented the substance and marketed the formulas for Librium and Valium. What do we mean by marketing? Let's see. In the United States, almost all medicines, except vitamins and aspirin, cannot be sold without a prescription. Since 1969 Valium is the most widely sold drug in the world. American doctors wrote down 60 million prescriptions of Valium each year, and Valium and Librium represent half of all tranquillizers sold in the United States.
A Hoffman-Laroche share is quoted at 40,000 dollars which makes them the most valuable shares in the world, providing you manage to get hold of one. Of course the price of these shares went drastically down since 1973, when they were worth 73,000 dollars, but don't worry, take a Valium! The wholesale price of the 2 milligrams contained in a Valium tablet is 6,9 cents. This makes it 6 times more expensive than gold. Conclusion: Fortune magazine describes Hoffman-Laroche as "world's greatest producer of medicines, and the absolute leader in the production of vitamins and psychotropic drugs, a firm that is currently one of the most profitable in the world" (Playboy, September 1978). (Taken from "Marijuana and other stories", Cesco Ciapanna, 1979).
In Italy, at least 10 million people regularly use tranquillizers and psychologic drugs with a prescription.
