Sure. Get the real medicine is the proper course of action.

This is a major undertaking. Besides the difficulties in the other replies, you also figure that this is expensive. It requires regular trips to the doctor for pain medicine, and possibly regular trips to a psychiatrist for the ADHD drug. For pain medicine, some places force folks to go to a pain clinic, where they drug test you. Smoke some pot to help it out and lose your pain meds.

If you want folks to use FDA approved methods and have actual medical care, that avenue has to be cheaper and easier to use than the illegal stuff and not treat folks like criminals in said system - and for many, it has failed to do this.

It is cheaper undoubtedly to get the legal drugs. Even with the crumbiest insurance, generics like adderall and morphine have no patents and are extremely cheap. You can use a drug savings card like GoodRX if you lack insurance.

Regarding "regular trips", you mean once a month and then probably once every 2 or 3 months once the doctor has established repoire? It is NO major undertaking. Maybe psychologically. Especially with all the rallying on here in support of that notion.

But how many trips is it to visit the drug dealer? And the risk involved with every trip. You are trivializing the mental block by giving validity to what is an easy physical undertaking.

Monthly. My ex's psychiatrist visits generally were $160 each visit without the insurance some years back, and a regular doctor visit was around $80. I'm thinking most insurances now have you pay for the full amount of the doctor's visit until you reach your deductible, though admittedly it has been a few years since I've lived in the states. I worked in a pharmacy, though, and realize that morphine and other opiods have controls requiring a physical prescription, no refils, and limits on how many days you can have on each prescription. Regular trips are actually necessary. The limits used to be around 30 days, and i'm not sure they made allowances for 90 day prescriptions with these.

Plus you have to be able to do things like get off work to go to the hospital and have transportation - and he had prior drug convictions, which makes it much harder to even get a doctor to prescribe the drugs.

If these things are "no major undertaking" to you, you've lived a consistently more privelidged life than I have. I might not personally gone his route, but I'd often not be able to get the drugs for myself anyway. Heck, I lived for years without hot water or proper heat because I couldn't afford the gas.

On another note: I'm not familiar with the prices of drugs enough to know if they are actually cheaper than the doctor's office + transport + prescription. Especially with meth, something I've never thought about trying. I am guessing there are more folks in this situation using pot.

There are several reason why I cannot follow your path for "legal" drugs. First, most doctors are loathe to provide long term pain management solutions, and even if I could find one, the cost would be outrageous and the hassle of dealing with the office visits and pharmacies would soon drive me away.

Second, I've tried Ritalin and it simply does not last long enough for what I need it to do. I know what works for me and I was very successfully self-medicating myself, and for the first time in a decade I was able to function at a very high level and be comfortable enough to find peace and even happiness.

Street drugs are killing me? No my friend...what's killing me is a criminal justice system and a society that has branded me undesirable and unhireable just because I use substances that they don't think I can handle.

[edit] I am fully aware that most of the readers here are going to pompously laugh at my assertions that I could somehow successfully medicate myself with "street drugs", and even use that as de facto proof that I am insane and/or a hopeless junkie to disregard my situation.

You of course have every right to make such judgements because I too know of many individuals whom are totally unable to function while taking these substances. However, I implore you to not lump me into that group so quickly, and to at least listen with an open mind to the substance of my rants...

If you require Rx drugs long term that no american doctor would Rx and would be working remotely anyway, I would of moved to somewhere in south america.

You could of gotten a lot of that kind of stuff over the counter fairly easily, and if you were stopped by the cops, you could of given him a bribe and just get out of it.

I don't know how simple that would of been with your prior convictions and all after the fact, but it's an option.

Anyone else in this guy's situation, take it as a lesson and leave the drugs in your house.

Great points. Also – these enhancers are also being used left and right to stay on the up-and-up at work, competitively. It's not at-all strange right now in my part of the tech world. Ever see Nurse Jackie? That.

It sounded extremely preachy. "What you should have done"....

OP wasn't asking for your advice about drugs...as a matter of fact dude probably knows more about them than you.

OP was making a point about how the consequences for minor offenses are way too punitive for the crime.

He's right. Having a little drugs on you should NOT be two months in jail...That's insane.

And having a felony should not ruin your life and make it impossible to get a job and take care of yourself and your family.

People make mistake. It's part of being human. But nowdays we have predators in the wings waiting for you to make a mistake, so they can exploit you with moral justification.

Banks, health insurance, governments...

It's really gotten out of hand.

OP did not mention anything about legal drugs. Id rather it be preachy and inform him and others that it is not difficult to get a prescription for Adderall if you have ADD symptoms.

The reason the OP gave for taking the drugs is "cognitive enhancement", not ADD treatment. It's probably going to be more difficult to find doctors willing to prescribe that, if this is your given reason.

(That being said, maybe this need for "cognitive enhancement" really does arise from an underlying medical condition like ADD. A sane legal system would in my opinion have, instead of jailing, sent this person to a doctor to figure this out.)

And don't think it should be overlooked, the feeling that one needs to take meth for cognitive enhancement in order to be useful enough to society to feed themselves, is a problem.

It won't even work for that and will end up destroying your brain. If you're going to take something not legal, use modafinil at least.

The idea of cognitive enhancement is mostly fake. If you're ADD, ADD medication helps, but if you're baseline it doesn't. Get some sleep and go running.

The point is less about his mental problems and more about how brutal drug laws are in America. Half of people in American jail's are drug offenders. How insane? Portugal, Netherlands have decriminalized drugs and have had no issues.

This is exactly my point, and relates nicely to the original article's point that stigmatizing non-violent drug offenders for much of their professional lives really serves no purpose beside driving people away from wanting to work.

Why has US society adopted this meme that felony possession of, say, cocaine at age 25 should brand you unhireable for much of your professional life?

Obviously, your examples of Portugal and the Netherlands show that there is no overarching societal need for this branding.

I got your point. I have friends in the same position. If someone has a drug felony they can't even get financial aid for college.

It's so fucked how we have this illusion of Drugs being evil pounded into our head from an early age. When they're not really that big of a deal. Literally like 90% of the country does drugs. Some of the most successful people do Cocaine. Sorry...ALL of the most successful people do it.

You got fucked for being poor essentially OP.

The sick sick part is...it's all exploiting the vulnerable for money. Fines, Salaries, Budgets, Grants for Prisons..

This is all well explored by numerous journalists. I'm not treading any new ground here in my thoughts here though.

Sorry you got trapped in the Murican B.S. O.P.

> you should have gotten a script for adderall/ritalin or some other ADHD drug from a doctor. It's not difficult.

It is difficult to get a doctor to prescribe you those drugs when you have a history of using meth.

Depending on the area it'd be difficult to get without driving as well. I know around where I live you have to go to multiple different doctors in different areas to get any add medication, and they are not guarunteed to be close to each other or near mass transit

General physicians can refill ADD meds. You mainly need to see a psych to get the script started. You guys are making this out to be some kind of incredible task with an uphill battle. Most health insurance offer free transport to doctors appointments (check your brochure.) Medicaid and medicare always do. Otherwise, public transport or rideshare isnt gonna break your bank for 1 or two visits until your regular doctor will write the refills. Or the psych can give you 2 or 3 months worth of scripts which is often the case.

Drug use typically shows up in your medical records.