Posted by JohnL on August 22, 2001, at 3:38:43
In reply to Lemme guess: you guys don't agree., posted by Zo on August 22, 2001, at 2:09:09
Interesting thread. My own two cents...
I happen to support importation of medicine. Maybe it isn't legal in Canada, but it is legal in the USA. Actually the rules are a bit fuzzy, but at this point the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FDA do allow a 90 day supply per shipment to be imported. Customs also allows it. Every foreign med I have personally imported came with a green Customs sticker on the package that simply said "supplements". Several of my packages had obviously been opened, inspected, resealed, stickered, and sent on their way to me. What are not legal to import are scheduled drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, and benzos. They are nearly impossible to get anyway.
No body has gone to jail for importing meds, and I doubt anyone will. The worst that sometimes happens is the DEA on a bad day might confiscate the medicine. That does happen, but rarely.
The body does not care who prescribes the drug. Whether the patient self administers it, or whether a doctor does, the body doesn't know or care.
There are ignorant people who should not do self medication. But for the most part, they do not populate this site, and they are not the type of people who will take the leap and order their own meds. Typically the type of people who order their own meds are the ones who have given it a lot of thought and study. They are well versed and well experienced in starting and stopping meds, titrating doses, dealing with side effects, etc etc. They have experience and they know the game. In most cases they know more about what they are doing than do their own doctors.
The bottom line is, I have to make a choice. Do I want to support some fat cat beauracrat's rules, or do I want to support someone suffering to get better? Believe me, I care a whole lot more about the suffering person.
There is always risk and benefit in any decision we make in life. On the topic of self medication or self importation, the potential benefits FAR outweigh potential risks, by a long shot.
I have a lot more faith in the patient's own decisions than I do the doctors' decisions. And in the USA, no one is going to jail for importing a med, as long as it isn't a scheduled substance, which is nearly impossible to get any way.
John> Cam, how realistic is it that Sal be arrested over this?
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> That's what I thought.
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> Listen to his point. You may find yourself in the same position. And *then* what would you do? "Uphold the law?" Really? While you suffered? For lack of something another country used, and safely?
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> That's what galls me. It's not like we're pulling meds out of the air, it's not like the places these meds are available are somehow in the dark. . .They're perfectly good meds.
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> Fie on Red Tape.
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> Z.
poster:JohnL
thread:75863
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010814/msgs/75900.html