Prime okay with antidepressants?

If that's your mom, which one is you?

 

Are you going to answer my question? Are you a lib who's in favor of legalization? You do have a hippie look about you.

 

As I understood it, any medicine that is not approved by the doctor and countersigned by your company safety ahead of time is not going to allow you to continue driving. In my time, it was strict. Specially narcotics. I would get hurt, shipped to ER and they wanted to shove a needle of something nice for me but I would say no, give me a aspirin or a stiff drink so I can wait a few hours and get back on the road later that evening or next morning. No drugs.

Fast forward to my later years. I drove for a auction house which included big truck sales using my knowledge to keep a small crew of CDL drivers on track with the new equiptment they have not been trained on yet such as the auto or the older air start equiptment that to them should be in a museum and never trained on. That was where I came in. I had to take a pee test every so often and in those days if there was anything, it would be detected. At that point you needed a waiver from the doctor plus the prescription bottle with current label to prove that is what is ok. ANYthing else not supporting lawful dr's drug prescribing got you fired.

Zoloft, Xanax etc belong to a class of drugs related to Mental Health. It has been my experience that once you are prescribed any of these kinds of drugs and continue to hold a CDL, even under Tier II rules for those who are medically retired from trucking but grandfathered in gets recorded in a special way by the Federal and State government for careful review of that medicine and potentially future mental health issues.

I do not have anything like that at all in my life and do not have mental issues to begin with. Lord willing I will never have them. Im watching my Vet spouse endure Mental Health because she is taking some of those medicines until she learned to simply stop taking them. Just taking one Xanax in a personal Car going to the grocery store rates a DUI, driving under influence of controlled substance if she made a mistake in front of a town police man. And having medicines of any kind without a dr's waiver note and especially a prescription with loose pills, pills wrapped in baggies or ziploc etc gets you arrested.

Things have gotten really dead serious in my area as authorities combat abuse of all kinds and I ended up turning in my CDL and getting a normal car license and possibly a motor cycle one at some point soon. I could care less for the pressure or intense scruitny that we were recieving when we both held CDL'S They don't give out private A licenses either where I am I don't think so I have to be careful what I put on my SUV's hitch in terms of trailer weight etc.

I hope this helps. But ultimately a review of your carrier's policy, federal motor carrier's policy, your doctor's review plus waiver plus a converstation with your Safety inside the company where you run for is all best to show you what is and what is not valid.

Things will not get easier as time goes by. I see a time in which people who lawfully take medicine for mental issues, pain or something, anything might be made borderline criminal by authorities and find themselves unable to make a living with a 18 wheeler, industry or anything that impacts the United States in some way regarding public safety.

 

Political labels are a poor substitute for critical thinking.

 

This is not correct. Please consider the following:

- The FMCSA does not prohibit drugs based on their class. They prohibit any drug listed in 21 CFR 1308.11 (391.42(b)(12). This list is here. They also say they prohibit any other habit forming drug. Both of these prohibitions can be waived if a medical examiner certifies that a person is safe to drive. The FMCSA's page covering this information can be found here.

- The Federal government does not keep records of the drugs U.S. citizens are prescribed unless a) you work for them and b) you disclose your prescriptions to them. There is no database they can "google" at will to somehow predict any future mental health issues a person may have.

- Psychiatrists can't predict future mental health issues. Incidentally, federal and state governments can't either.

- There is a difference between drug classes and controlled substances. All drugs have a "Therapeutic Class" and a "Pharmacological Class" assigned to them. There is no one single class that encompases all drugs used to treat mental health issues. Here's an example:

Zoloft

Therapeutic class: Antidepressants
Pharmacological class: Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors

Zoloft is not a controlled substance.

Xanax

Therapeutic class: Anti-anxiety agents
Pharmacological class: benzodiazepines

Xanax is a Schedule IV controlled substance.

The first part of this slideshow explains the different classification systems for drugs.

- Part of the reason the government does not "review medications for potential future mental health issues" is because only the healthcare provider knows why he or she prescribed a certain medication. For example, Zoloft can be prescribed to a person who is diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder but is not diagnosed with any form of depression.

Hope this helps.

 

Ty, Ive some reading to do to get caught up.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about here, I just asked a question that's all.

 

Well, if I had to trap myself into a box by a political label, I guess it'd be constitional libertarianism.

 

Only a fool would disclose medications to an employer. On the form where it asks for medications, write "None" and move along.

 

Exactly. They only test, for what, like five different kinds of substances? Ask yourself if you're taking anything that might fall within one of those categories, and if the answer is no, keep your mouth shut.