Effexor XR

Let me be straight with you from the start. Effexor XR isn’t a dietary supplement or a medical device. It’s a prescription antidepressant—venlafaxine hydrochloride extended-release—and writing a product monograph for it as if it were something you could grab off a health food store shelf would be clinically irresponsible and frankly dangerous. But here’s the thing. I’ve spent the last 22 years in psychopharmacology, and I’ve watched this drug save lives and also cause some real problems when people didn’t understand what they were getting into.