A pill press is used to turn some given powder into a pill for ingestion. They range in size from hand-held single pill presses to industrial scale presses that can turn out ten thousand pills an hour, or more. Because of the war on some drugs, they are illegal for individuals to own in the United States.

Of course a press would be useless without binder to hold the pill together, filler to make the pill a manageable size, lubricant so the pill will come out of the press, food coloring to add visual appeal, and of course a drug of some kind (or some sugar to press candy). Another handy thing to have is a die on the ends of your compression rods so your pills can say Merck, Pfizer, or possibly Mitsubishi. Pharmaceutical grade presses can often coat their pills with a gelatin mixture to make them go down easier and taste better, and which can be printed on with edible ink.

A ghetto fabulous pill press can be made from:

Construction is left as an exercise to the reader.


All this writing about pill presses has reminded me of something I saw on a mailing list the other day. This conversation occured between two list members in Real Life, but was posted to the list with the names changed to protect the innocent.

e-tard: Happy birthday Tim.
Tim: A pill press?
e-tard: Uh-huh!
Tim: A pill press?!? I don't even want a pill, let alone many pills which would necessitate an entire press! What the hell am I gonna do with a pill press?!?
e-tard: You know Tim, if you're not careful, you're gonna lose me someday.

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