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Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

I just signed up with Cerebral yesterday and have an appointment in half an hour...

FYI: Controlled substance prescriptions will be registered in your state’s controlled substance database. Any future provider will be able to see that you’ve gotten pills from a pill mill doctor if they care to look, at least until the records fall off.

This is basically the opioid epidemic being repeated with amphetamine.

If you believe you actually have ADHD, get a real appointment with a real doctor and build a real relationship that doesn’t involve a cash-only subscription to a pill mill. Using a pill mill will jeopardize your future doctor relationships and the pill mills will be shut down as soon as the COVID controlled prescribing exceptions expire.

Ugh stop trying to demonize this. I have a diagnosed problem which I used to take a controlled substance for from a psych who I had dedicated sessions with. Every time I went to the pharmacist, I had to put my name on a binder for the "controlled substances list" and got dark looks from the pharmacist every time I filled my prescription in. It was embarrassing enough at first admitting to friends and family that I sough mental health help. Attitudes like yours intimidate so many people who rely on controlled substances for living fulfilling everyday lives. With the help of my psych I left the controlled substance, but a significant factor was the stigma I'd face from friends, family, and the judgemental pharmacists who knew nothing about me.

Pill mill or not, let people find a way to live their best lives. Unless you're a doctor or healthcare professional, stop telling others how to live their lives.

If you let people find their own free way to best live their lives, they won't. Exposing the masses to strong, addictive and unhealthy drugs means getting more people hooked. What follows is crime, unemployment, heavier drugs, death.

Unless you understand that your use-case might not fit the public, stop implying substances are controlled for no reason.

In a country like the US where big pharma keeps lobbying to regulate as little as possible I would pause and think about why they're not OTC and how it would affect the general population if they were.

> If you let people find their own free way to best live their lives, they won't. Exposing the masses to strong, addictive and unhealthy drugs means getting more people hooked. What follows is crime, unemployment, heavier drugs, death.

Ah like the War on Drugs, got it.

> Unless you understand that your use-case might not fit the public, stop implying substances are controlled for no reason.

You're constructing a strawman. You're taking what I said ("whether it's a pill mill or not, let folks live their lives") and interpreting it in the weakest way possible ("implying substances are controlled for no reason".) This is not what I said. A "pill mill" (some pejorative used for institutions that folks disagree with apparently) is an institution that has some medical liability. It's not making every substances an unregulated one.

> Ah like the War on Drugs, got it.

Other than leading to the same thing they have nothing in common, and the reason there is a war on drugs is a complex, heated political topic. At no point did I say the war on drugs is a good thing.

You're constructing a strawman, You're taking what I said (leads to people's misery) and interpreting it in the weakest way possible (drugs are bad). This is not what I said, I said that exposing the masses to addictive drugs is a really bad idea. You tried giving opioids to everyone, everyone got hooked on opioids, rinse and repeat.

I'm not saying we should mistreat or lock up consumers of drugs, I'm saying it's a good idea to limit exposure in the first place. Drugs help people everywhere, they also ruin people everywhere.

I'm sorry, how are they "demonizing" it? Sounds more like a warning, and a pretty reasonable one.

There's no point at which you will be able to get those from a pill mill but not a doctor if they're actually medication for you

Crack dealer dot com definitely should be demonized

>This is basically the opioid epidemic being repeated with amphetamine.

No it isn't, it's a repeat of the previous American amphetamine epidemic, which has somehow been successfully memory-holed despite lasting multiple decades.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377281/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/speedy-history-americ...

If appointments with local mental health experts weren't booked out months in advance, I wouldn't be here. I don't "believe" I have ADHD, I know it and have a diagnosis to that effect; but I have to speak to a psych in person (in the 'normal' system) for bullshit bureaucratic reasons to get meds restarted.

I'm elated this exists, and find your demonizing of it to be insensitive, hyperbolic and distasteful. Please mind your own business.

I'm happy for you. Hopefully they continue to offer you quick access to services. However, I'd encourage you to look on twitter and in the news for examples where Cerebral went radio silent on patients who were waiting for refills. Maybe consider savoring the prescriptions you get, since you don't know when/if the next one will arrive ;)

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