#Controlled Substances

[whetstonefires]

another for the bag of 'mdzs modern au, a thing i don't write.'

i feel kind of surprised no one's done a bit where wei wuxian in his yllz era is buying pills off a drug dealer, right, and lan wangji is all >:CCC "immoral! unsafe! illegal! what about all your potential."

but the thing is. it's just ritalin.

it is, in fact, the exact ritalin prescription wei wuxian already had, from his doctor.

it's just, when you're on the run from the law because you assaulted a cop in the middle of his murdering your friend, you can't really get your prescriptions filled normally. you gotta cheat.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Karen Thompson for Abortion, Every Day:

Earlier this year Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed into law SB 276, a first-of-its-kind legislation classifying mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances. The drugs, commonly used to perform medication abortions, are responsible for 63% of abortions in the US. As a result of this new law, mere possession of mifepristone and misoprostol without a prescription in Louisiana can result in fines of up to $5,000 or “imprisonment of no more than five years with or without hard labor.”  We know what happens now: The outcome of this new layer of criminalization is entirely foreseeable. By putting the pills on a drug registry with special access rules, providers are no longer able to easily prescribe the pills and the ability of OB/GYNs to nimbly provide needed—and even emergency—health care if a woman is miscarrying is chilled. In Louisiana’s telling, mife and miso are the new heroin and medication abortion care puts pregnant people’s lives in jeopardy, not their own dangerous law. The lack of situational awareness around the law would be comical if the inevitable devastation of its effects wasn’t so horrifying. 

This is true even for people who are not using the drugs to end their pregnancies, but for the myriad other health issues the drugs treat—from softening the cervix for an endometrial biopsy to the insertion of IUDs. But the massive burden SB 276 places on pregnant people—particularly those seeking to self-manage their own abortions—is disastrous. By reclassifying a safe, effective, regulated drug used for a broad range of healthcare purposes into a dangerous controlled substance whose distribution and use can be entered and tracked in a state database, Louisiana, as one local health care provider noted, would “effectively be creating a database of every woman who is prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol, regardless of the reason, truly monitoring women and their pregnancies. That should be unimaginable in America.”

Such policing is not only very much imaginable in America, but has been the country’s sad truth for decades. Before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, state surveillance and criminalization of women during pregnancy and around their pregnancy outcomes—based on their alleged drug use, in particular—was the daily truth for countless women and other people who can become pregnant. A past truth is simply devolving into a dystopian present.  To be clear, classifying drugs in light of their potential harms is not a new thing. One of the most infamous classification tools, the Controlled Substances Act, has been in place since the 1970s, when President Nixon signed it into law. The CSA became the enforcing mechanism for Nixon’s “War on Drugs,” and gave both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration power to determine which substances were fit for medical use. Such regulation can serve a useful purpose; the CSA is itself the legislative grandchild of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which required food and drug manufacturers to clearly label any product that contained dangerous substances, including morphine and opium, drugs often included in everyday products from soft drinks to teething medicines. 

But SB 276 is not trying to protect babies. As John Erhlichman, one of Richard Nixon’s Watergate co-conspirators, bluntly stated in 1994: “[w]e knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the [Vietnam] war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could . . . vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”  Once again, government actors are lying about drugs to criminalize women’s access to and control over their own social and bodily autonomy. Louisiana’s law unmasks in broad daylight what so many people and communities living with the consequences of bad drug policy have long known: the “war on drugs” is a political invention to construct fiscal and social power over individuals and communities, not to provide much needed public health services. 

[...] By criminalizing possession of abortion medication, the Venn diagram of overlap between the “war on drugs” and the war on reproductive freedom has, once again, become a perfect circle. The efforts to control reproduction and drugs are rooted in the same forms of bigotry: controlling women’s behavior and liberties rather than providing actionable solutions to satisfy public health needs. 

Karen Thompson writes for Abortion, Every Day the impacts of criminalization of abortion medication as the new era of the War on Drugs takes shape in the post-Roe era.

[mathsbian]

CVS pharmacy tech lied to my face today 🙃

Last week, I tried to order a refill of the prescription I’m on for my chronic pain. I had two and half days of doses left. Obviously, Thanksgiving meant maybe I should have ordered it sooner to be sure they had it in stock, but it’s a controlled substance (Schedule 4, I think?) and I can’t order refills til I’m like 3-5 days of being out.

I went in to the pharmacy to speak with someone about it, because the website made it very difficult to place the order and also was not displaying it as in progress or in my order history or anything. I wanted to be sure they knew it wasn’t too early like the website kept trying to insist. One of the techs very dismissively told me it wasn’t in stock and to take the script somewhere else to get it filled. (I didn’t realize she meant “if I wanted it before Thanksgiving” til later). I left feeling a little annoyed but sure that I would have my script by Monday, because surely they would order more when my script wasn’t moved.

It’s Wednesday now. 9 days of no meds. Last night, I tried sending the script back to the CVS pharmacy I normally fill at, by our former apartment. I went all the way over there, freezing my butt off in the car waiting for the heat to kick in and slowly getting more tense and pained. I went inside and went to the counter. I asked about my prescription. The tech here told me he could see the script from October 29, but because it was a NEW script and I had transferred it to the other pharmacy, it was now stuck there unless I had my doctor send another script to my old pharmacy. Great!

So we left, and my partner drove us through rush-hour traffic that was worse than usual because of a wreck that had completely stopped cars going the other way (there were like 8 cops in a line just. Keeping people from moving forward. When there was nowhere to go because the ambulance and another vehicle were in the middle of the highway). We finally make it to the CVS nearest my mom’s. The one she has hated with a burning passion since we started having to use CVS over 15 years ago. The one where I was dismissively told to take my controlled prescription to another pharmacy as if that’s an easy thing to do.

We get to the counter. The same lady who dismissed me before is back there again. Someone says they’ll be with me in a moment in a tone implying that I’m acting impatient when I was just looking at signs and waiting quietly two feet from the window. A different tech comes to help me. She tells me that there isn’t a script at all. I mention October 29 and she says “nope!” without even double checking like the tech at the other, much busier pharmacy took the time to do. She says she has sent another note to my doctor and to call him if there’s anymore problems.

And then a minute later I get a text from CVS automated update line informing me that they don’t have my medication in stock and are ordering more.

[valleeeeejo]

god im so tired...

[arrestdujour]

Worrell, Christopher Steven

Kuna, ID

JID Number: 01103296 Age: 27 Arresting Agency: Ada County Sheriff

Charge Count: 3

 Register for notification on changes to inmate's custody status.

F Controlled Substance-Possession of Criminal Charge Not Bailable

M Drug Paraphernalia-Use or Possess With Intent to Use Criminal Charge $300.00

M Controlled Substance-Possession of Criminal Charge $300.00

This individual will not be released from custody due to a nonbailable charge(s)

Bail Total: $600.00

[grungygma]

When he looks like a lil peep song 😩

[themarchrabbit]

I'm not asking for much. A lot of people in the US struggle with English spelling, which is a legit issue. For one, English spelling is...it sure is something at times. For another, a lot of people in the US speak English as a second language. So really, as long as I can work it out, I'm not really concerned with the handwritten spelling and grammar on paperwork. ["6 kays's"? Ah, you meant 6 cases, I got you]

However, I work in shipping. And uh...if you're a multi-billion dollar company, you should probably make sure that on the actual printed Bill of Lading that is sent out for all of your shipments as a standard form, that the name of a controlled substance is spelled correctly.

Guess who had a Super Fun call with the DEA today?

[olden-towne]

Lake drugs:

Otter-hol

Seaweed, aka Merrow-juana or Swannabis

Turtle-bacco

Hoppers

croak-caine (including Quack)

Heron

Ayahuascarp

LSD (the L stands for Lily pad)

Egretstasy

Methan-flipper-mine

Angel Duck

And, of course, Magic Mushrooms

[nonpienary]

Literally switched this year to a (somewhat less powerful) non-controlled non-stimulant (called Atomoxetine for the curious) because I have literally lost jobs over the difficulties I’ve had obtaining the controlled stimulant I took for over a decade.

Hard to find at pharmacies, hard to get a prescription for (one doctor I spoke with flat out refused to write precriptions for it), hard to navigate doctor policies (monthly doctor visits before I got a prescription, meaning if I ever forgot a visit bc ADHD I’d have to wait weeks to get another one and would run out of my meds, or another doctor whose policy directly contradicted my insurance (doc would only write a script for a month at a time but my insurance would only fill three months at a time).

It was awful

[ariannamedicalpharmacy]

Switching pharmacies doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right steps, you can transfer prescriptions without delays or hassle. Here’s how you can make the process smooth while ensuring your medications remain accessible.

[arrestdujour]

Gergen, William Robert

Caldwell, ID

JID Number: 01117306 Age: 42 Arresting Agency: Boise City Police Department

Charge Count: 2

 Register for notification on changes to inmate's custody status.

F Controlled Substance-Possession of Criminal Charge $10,000.00

F Probation Violation - FE Return to Custody Not Bailable

This individual will not be released from custody due to a nonbailable charge(s)

Bail Total: $10,000.00

[please-hit-me-with-rocks]

[wat3rm370n]

U.S. Senators criticized leaked telehealth restriction plans of DEA in a letter to President Biden.

Some senators have sent a letter to President Biden to criticizing the leaked proposed DEA’s plans to restrict telemedicine options, saying “it is vital that any new regulations do not erect barriers to necessary, life-saving care.”

The senators who signed the letter are: Sheldon Whitehouse, Lisa Murkowski, Mark R. Warner, Marsha Blackburn, Peter Welch, Ben Ray Luján, Jeffrey A. Merkley, Ron Wyden, Angus S. King, Jr, Mark Kelly, Martin Heinrich.

If any of them were my senator, I would be writing and thanking them — this is the letter I’m sending to my senators and the White House:

I’m disappointed to hear that the DEA plans to restrict access to telehealth options. Telemedicine is medicine, and I agree with the senators who said: “it is vital that any new regulations do not erect barriers to necessary, life-saving care.” in the October 11, 2024 letter to the White House. Please act in preservation of telehealth prescribing of medicine classed as controlled substances. Mental health conditions and substance use disorders are considered covid risk factors, and many risk factor conditions require the use of controlled prescriptions. https://www.cdc.gov/covid/risk-factors/index.html It’s essential for people who have disabilities, people who have difficulty traveling to in-person appointments, live in rural areas with few options close to home, and those who want or need to avoid preventable exposure to constantly circulating potentially dangerous infectious disease, by having the option of a televisit when no in-person physical examination is needed.

Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.

More info:

Lawmakers Pan DEA's Leaked Plans for Telehealth — Meanwhile, a third extension of current rules is in the works by Shannon Firth, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today October 16, 2024

[gabatelepsychiatry-blog]

Can an Online Psychiatrist Send Controlled Substances?

As more individuals pursue mental health care online, many are curious as to whether online psychiatrists can prescribe controlled substances. The answer is yes, but there are important regulations to follow.

Each state has its own rules concerning these prescriptions, so it is crucial for online psychiatrists to be aware of them. Here are the main points to consider:

State-Specific Laws - Online psychiatrists must follow the guidelines of the state in which they are licensed.

In-Person Requirement - Most states require that patients have an in-person appointment before an online psychiatrist is allowed to prescribe controlled substances.

Online Interviews - Some states permit online prescribing following a clinical interview, as long as it is deemed clinically appropriate.

Collaboration with PCPs - In some states, if online prescribing is not allowed, the psychiatrist may need to contact the patient's primary care physician (PCP) to provide the prescription.

Clinical Appropriateness - Prescriptions may be issued if deemed clinically appropriate and in the best interest of the patient.

Comprehensive Evaluation - A comprehensive psychiatric evaluation must be conducted before prescribing controlled substances.

Legal Compliance - Psychiatrists must follow the laws applicable in the state where they practice.

Online psychiatrists can prescribe controlled substances, but it is essential for them to carefully follow the different laws in each state. By adhering to these regulations and focusing on patient care, they can effectively support those in need. Knowing the rules is crucial for maintaining safe practices and building trust in online mental health care.

For more information, visit https://gabapsychiatrist.com/ or call GABA Telepsychiatry at +1(833)312-4222.

[simplyforensic]

From The Street To The Lab: Understanding Forensic Drug Chemistry

In the shadowy underbelly of society, a clandestine economy thrives, propelled by the illicit trade of controlled substances. From street corners to abandoned warehouses, the pervasive presence of illegal drugs poses a formidable challenge to law enforcement agencies and public safety. Amidst this intricate web of criminality, forensic drug chemistry emerges as a powerful ally, employing…

[dracox-serdriel]

Things you should be able to get with a single doctor's visit:

Prescription pain medication

Comprehensive pain treatment & management plan

A referral / coverage for unlimited physical therapy / etc. treatment appointments to address the underlying cause of the pain

A referral / coverage for unlimited psychotherapy to address your needs as a human person living with chronic and/or acute pain

Someone may not need a comprehensive pain treatment plan for an acute injury, but so many people get sent home with nothing more than "do the R.I.C.E. method and come back if it's still bothering you in two weeks" -- and of course pony up another copay with that next visit. Why do they need to come back? Why can't you be sent home with, "Listen, if this is still bothering you after a week or two of R.I.C.E. and pain meds, make an appointment with a PT for assessment." Or whatever the next step is after that. Why do I have to come back and be like, "You know the pain you didn't actually address two weeks ago? YUP, still there!"

Putting pain management behind a never ending paywall with hoops you have to jump through is just... never okay.

Also, pain management for things like root canals should never be absolutely limited to OTC medication just because the endodontist doesn't want the DEA crawling up their ass with a flashlight because they prescribed necessary pain medication. Nobody should have to deal with unnecessary pain just because an Rx is too much of a hassle for other people. If OTC pain management works for most patients, by all means, recommend it. But don't lecture a patient that they "don't need" (or "shouldn't need") stronger pain management meds just because most people don't need it.

Addiction is a serious neurological disorder that humanity has been treating like a behavioral issue for far too long. All these restrictions on pain medication aren't doing jack shit to stop addication - they're just tripping up people who need so-called "controlled substances."

It is actually way better for 100 addicts to get their fix on pain pills than a single person in pain go without. I call this the "Torture is bad" principle. You should be able to get the good stuff forever after a single doctor's visit. If you're worried about addicts fund rehab centers and needle exchanges instead of torturing people.