In a few hours, I will begin a two-hour (one-way) drive to the pharmacy to pick up a 30-day supply of generic Adderall.
It's not for a lack of any closer pharmacies, and it's not because of the stimulant shortage. I have to drive this far because of new DEA rules.
I used to get Adderall from my local Buy n Large pharmacy without a problem, until a few weeks ago. I asked the head pharmacist what had changed, and he explained everything to me while expressing extreme sympathy for my situation. Apparently, the DEA recently sued Buy n Large for $3 billion for "not doing enough to keep drugs from flowing into communities", and part of the settlement agreement included a new restriction: that controlled substances can only be dispensed if the prescribing physician is local (defined as within 50 miles). He recommended I try other pharmacies in town, but all others I called had taken up a similar policy.
I live in a rural area which, like most rural areas in America, is underserved by healthcare specialists including psychiatrists. When I moved here, I had to drive two and a half hours to the nearest megacity in order to be seen by a psychiatrist in a timely manner (<90 days). I do most follow-up appointments by webcam so it wasn't too much of a problem... until now.
I like to create original media. Nearly every piece of worthwhile art I've ever created was made possible by my medication. The periods I go without it are the dark ages of my life. That's why I'm willing to make the drive today.
It pisses me off that I have to waste so much time, energy, and gasoline because a cop in a boardroom somewhere decided that too many people were getting Adderall and the best way to combat this "problem" would be to make it more of a pain in the ass for people to get.
My read is that the opioid crisis was a large scale money-making conspiracy between pharma, the FDA, and many doctors. "We believed the magic heroin wasn't addictive!" is such bullshit. Apparently there was a lot of arm-twisting of doctors by pharma funded lobbying and propaganda groups working in league with elements of the FDA and some doctor professional organizations. Like they pushed the idea that any pain was too much pain and the doctor was doing crimes if they didn't give you enough oxy to anesthetize a horse.
Oh yes, the "Pain is the Fifth Vital Sign" campaign.
Yeah. Just messed up. I've apparently got a fairly high pain tolerance by some metrics so I've never taken a lot of pain meds, so when I heard about that, that no pain at all was the goal, I was taken aback.
America delenda est.