New, from FakeCo: Placebotrol!
My flabber was quite significantly gasted when someone posted an ad for the anti-nervous-tension drug “Pre-Tense” to the Healthfraud list.
I looked at it, and I of course immediately thought it was a joke. The pill is called “Pre-Tense”, after all. And the sales spiel is headlined “Nervous Tension a Weakness?”, which is straight out of the old patent medicine ads.
But no - Pre-Tense actually seems to be real.
It’s made by Indigene Pharmaceuticals, which is a real company. And there’s not a hint of a joke anywhere on the pretensepill.com site, besides the preposterous name. And yes, you can really buy the pills, direct from Indigene if you’re in the States, or from other dealers.
And Pre-Tense may actually do something, since it is alleged to contain herbs (including valerian) which may indeed have some (very) mild relaxant effect.
But the drug’s name, I feel compelled to repeat, means “the act of giving a false appearance”, “pretending with intention to deceive” or “a false or unsupportable quality”.
It’s like that episode of Brass Eye where all of those celebrities sagely warned about a “made-up drug” called “cake”:
The cake is a lie...
I'm sorry, but if I hadn't done it, someone else would have.
Comment by Jax184 — December 20, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
"Luckily, the amount of heroin I use is harmless: I inject about once a month on a purely recreational basis. Fine. But what about other people less stable, less educated, less middle-class than me? Builders, or blacks, for example. If you're one of those, my advice is to leave well alone."
Comment by moller — December 24, 2007 @ 3:40 pm