I know the title sounds kind of crazy, but hear me out.
Over the past year or so, companies have been using TV and radio to heavily market to the public that GLP-1 is the "#1 savor" for weight lost. Now, I'm not against the drug and I believe that it is very useful. The process of losing weight is different for everyone, and this drug is great in that sense.
However......like with all good things, people find a way to abuse them! There are SO many smaller companies selling compounds of this drug and people are able to get them without prescriptions. Even on social media (TikTok and others), there are doctors, practicing and non practicing, that are actively/heavily *promoting* some of these compounds and most likely getting some sort of kickback without the liability. Idc about the logistics of it all, I'm just telling you what I see on my social media feeds.
In some weird way, I'm getting opioid crisis/Purdue Pharma/Sackler Family vibes. **No**, there are **no direct parallels** necessarily, but things just seem off about this. I think it's probably the easy accessibility and the opportunity for abuse. Also, as we all know with medicine, it usually takes years to hear about major side effects, which is normal. On top of that, I'm sure there are people using it in *creative* ways. Basically, I'm betting for even more significant side effects, lack of adherence and misuse/abuse. This also reminds me of when I learned that Sudafed was limited in the stores/pharmacies in the early 2000s because it could be used to make....you know what. But before that, I'm sure sudafed was a free-for-all type of situation.
Now on to the investing part...I'm not too sure how to do this. Doing some quick research, and I was thinking of doing what those hedge funds did to Gamestop a few years ago. I think it's called shorted/shorting? The only difference is that I don't have billions, so I won't lose billions..haha. I'm thinking of it as something on the side, small amounts of money over a period of time. But I think the same principle still applies, right? Obviously, this isn't a short term thing. But I expect companies to take a major hit eventually, and then the government will put some regulation in place in some sort of way.
What are your opinions? How should I start? Overall, do you all think i crazy for betting for something like this? Idk...humans always find a way to abuse things, so i don't feel too crazy for this idea.