# Legality of possession of a non-controlled Rx drug w/o a prescription **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 18, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-possession-of-a-non-controlled-rx-drug-w-o-a-prescription/725545 "2015-07-18T20:19:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-possession-of-a-non-controlled-rx-drug-w-o-a-prescription/725545/41 "2015-07-25T04:47:53Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Seriously? :eek: What country are you in? Trinidad, Asthalin 200 dose inhaler from Cipla is 2.50 USD, brand name Ventolin is 6.50 USD. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-possession-of-a-non-controlled-rx-drug-w-o-a-prescription/725545/42 "2015-07-25T17:32:12Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > I can even beat that! 🙂 How does $4.73 a can grab you? Free shipping if you buy 53 of them. At that price, you can blow up party balloons with the stuff. It’s the real deal, too. I’ve been ordering from them for years and have never gotten bunk product. Luckily I don’t need mine very often - it takes me years to go through one. But imagine if it were something you needed all the time, like BP medicine, cholesterol medicine, etc.? Most of those drugs are not scheduled, but they can be freaking expensive. I totally understand the motivation to order them from outside the U.S., especially when sometimes you can buy the same brand-name drug, manufactured in Europe, Canada, or even in the U.S., for a small fraction of the U.S. price. But that’s a subject for the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-possession-of-a-non-controlled-rx-drug-w-o-a-prescription/725545/43 "2015-07-25T22:29:10Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > That’s a good question to get the ball rolling with. [Etizolam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etizolam) and [tianeptine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine) are good examples of such substances, although they both have abuse potential. They are two commonly discussed compounds on Internet message boards that cater to the offshore pharmacy community. Neither drug is currently scheduled in the United States, and it is legal to possess both of them, although three states (Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi) have made etizolam a controlled substance. Tianeptine can even be purchased from domestic vendors in bulk powder form, and until recently etizolam was also available from these same sources… Thanks! I’ll add another category. Drugs that are “experimental” in the US but ordinary pharmaceuticals in other countries. I know a guy who takes a steroid for an auto immune disorder which has been approved in Canada, Europe, Australia, NZ, Japan, Israel, India, and probably lots of other places, but has not been approved by the FDA basically because it’s expensive to get a drug approved in the U.S., and the drug is cheap, and no one wants to pay to get it on the U.S. Market. His doctor recommended it as having fewer side effects than the available drugs in the U.S., and wrote a prescription for a Canadian pharmacy. I was curious if this is legal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-possession-of-a-non-controlled-rx-drug-w-o-a-prescription/725545.md?page=2)