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Comment by gnulinux | Hacker News Reader

What drives me crazy is, if you go to a psychiatrist today and lie about having hard time sleeping, they can immediately prescribe you Ambien which not only causes dementia and other neurological problems in long term use, but systematically makes people do absolutely batshit crazy things they'll never remember the next morning. In the US, drug regulations are absolutely ridiculous and have no scientific basis, it is randomly decided by a few individuals and systematically affect the lives of each and every person living in the US, citizen or not. I can't even begin to believe how&why we let things like this happen.

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> they can immediately prescribe you Ambien which not only causes dementia and other neurological problems in long term use, but systematically makes people do absolutely batshit crazy things they'll never remember the next morning.

Not only that, the same psychiatrist might be getting kickbacks from the maker of ambien to peddle it to their clients.

>it is randomly decided by a few individuals

It isn't randomly decided. It's systematically decided by drug companies.

It's bizarre. I have been treated for ADHD with stimulants for years and when I walk my psychs office there is Adderall/Vyvanse and Shire Pharmaceutical paraphernalia all over the walls, posters, tote bags, little models of the brain stamped with "Adderall XR".

>I can't even begin to believe how&why we let things like this happen.

$$$.

CBD and THC can easily be monetized for profit so what's the issue?

The issue was that we wanted a new loophole for the 13th amendment. We also really wanted to permanently "deport" Americans who had brown skin.

There's a lot of money in that.

Don’t know why you’re downvoted, since the Controlled Substances Act was meant to disrupt African American and leftist political efforts, according to Nixon’s domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman.

They couldn’t raid black panther meetings for legally possessing guns, but they could for smoking joints and selling drugs.

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/03/23/poli...

Competition, as in, ease of home drug creation.

We haven't left the 1920's in terms of using drug law to "clean up" "undesirables".

wasn't this 70s drug law to prevent people from voting agaisnt Nixon? those people would still vote against Trump, so they shouldn't be allowed to

So far I did not have that issue, but I am getting a bit concerned. If that is correct, going to a doctor, despite paying a hefty price, I have to double and sanity check my doctor's prescriptions. I don't want to end up accidentally dealing with terrible side-effects for little gain...

And I can not say I can trust my pharmacist to raise a flag on a dangerous prescription or interference between medication, as I would back home. Perhaps this is a subjective feeling.

P.S. On second thought: I am concerned about a friend who is getting over prescribed addictive medication for chronic back pain (see Vicodin/ Hydrocodone w. paracetamol). I have discussed this with a few family doctors overseas who all agree it is a terrible idea. Yet it is kind of standard in the U.S. Anyone with medical training in the U.S. has experience, thoughts or care to pitch in?

It is true. We had endless conversations about Ambien in Hackersnews, one example here 50 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17591515

I was prescribed Ambien by going to a doctor for insomnia. No tests, no nothing. Sure I legit had insomnia, a pretty bad one at that, but they just asked me my problem I told them I can't sleep, next thing I know I'm prescribed Ambien. This the university hospital one of the best universities in US, not some random rural hospital.

You should never ever use any drug without doing your own research about it. Doesn't matter if #1 MD in the Western World prescribed it. Drug industry is nothing but a game to make 1% of 1% richer.

My other half has a chronic psychiatric condition, after struggling for 2 years we'd found a combo that worked. Prior to that though, we'd had to check drug/drug interactions ourselves because a previous doctor simply didn't, nor did the pharmacist...

Been using Epocrates (the free parts) to check interactions and side effects. Beats digging through the FDA website for it.

One suggestion, NEVER look up common drugs like Advil.

>> One suggestion, NEVER look up common drugs like Advil. Why is that?

Because if there was one instance of it during trial or there was someone that had it while on the medication even unrelated it's probably in there.

So say someone took Advil then had, as a minor example, violent giggling fits completely unrelated. Now violent giggling fits is going to be listed as an adverse effect for Advil because, maybe it caused it?

Now replace violent giggling with fun things like: stroke, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or whatever other fun things are listed on Advil...

Basically, likely to scare yourself for no reason. But for more serious drugs? Maybe worth some digging.

benzos and amphetamins, easy to get legally as long as you don't try to get thc or some magic forms of amphetamins like crystal.

And when you are an black us citizen, have fun in prison.

It is stupid...

Or opiates, or benzodiazeprines, or amphetamine. The list goes on.

'Consumer protection' makes extremely good political capital.

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