If I did have any first-hand insight into this subject, I would not post it on the internet. Keep it between yourself and your lawyer, as you have confidentiality protections with him/her. You should have the same confidentiality protections with your doctor, but that's a much more tenuous legal relationship, and if it were me, I would not count on it holding firm, either from the doctor's voluntary wish to maintain confidentiality for their patients perspective, or from the perspective that if the government (any government, local, state or federal) wants certain medical information which most of us assume is protected as being private, they'll get it.
The truth is that there are no strict standards for identifying illegal use of prescription drugs juxtaposed against gun ownership or carry laws, or maybe more to the point, no strict standards for who might be considered a "legal" authority to put someone on such a list. NICS is the overriding authority on that subject, and the section that covers how people get on a restricted list says the following:
SEC. 101. ENHANCEMENT OF REQUIREMENT THAT FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES PROVIDE RELEVANT INFORMATION TO THE NATIONAL INSTANT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM.
(c) Standard for Adjudications, Commitments, and Commitments Related to Mental Health-
(1) IN GENERAL- No department or agency of the Federal Government may provide to the Attorney General any record of an adjudication related to the mental health of a person, or any commitment of a person to a mental institution if--
(A) the adjudication, or commitment, respectively, has been set aside or expunged, or the person has otherwise been fully released or discharged from all mandatory treatment, supervision, or monitoring;
(B) the person has been found by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority to no longer suffer from the mental health condition that was the basis of the adjudication, determination, or commitment, respectively, or has otherwise been found to be rehabilitated through any procedure available under law; or
(C) the adjudication, or commitment, respectively, is based solely on a medical finding of disability, without an opportunity for a hearing by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority, and the person has not been adjudicated as a mental defective consistent with section 922(g)(4) of title 18, United States Code, except that nothing in this section or any other provision of law shall prevent a Federal department or agency from providing to the Attorney General any record demonstrating that a person was adjudicated to be not guilty by reason of insanity, or based on lack of mental responsibility, or found incompetent to stand trial, in any criminal case or under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The above is the latest revision (2007) to NICS concerning how one gets "adjudicated" to be incompetent to own and/or carry a gun. If you're interested in the referenced section in (C) that controls adjudication as a mental defective,
Link Removed. You will see though, that this 2007 legislation is not restricted by
it, but rather, this legislation
expands on the word "adjudicated" to include unspecified "boards," "commissions" and "other legal authority." Click on the link to verify that for yourself if need be.
The makeup of the "board" or "commission" or "other legal authority" is not specified anywhere, but more importantly, not
mandated to be made up of a body that adheres to the due process protections of The Constitution. It might be confusing seeing all that legalese when only a few words, distilled down to the text's real meaning, are pertinent, so let's do just that; break it down. Basically what it is saying is.....
The Federal Government may not provide to the Attorney General any record of adjudication related to the mental health of a person, or any commitment of a person to a mental institution if....
....the adjudication, or commitment, respectively, is based solely on a medical finding of disability without a hearing by some doctor, or self-appointed "commission" or "board" of doctors and/or lawyers, or perhaps just some local anti-gun yahoos "officially" appointed by a Mayor or County Commission or whatever, because this law does not stipulate what constitutes a "legal authority!!"
The law is so ambiguous as to allow the formation of some body with the imprimatur of governmental legitimacy, but it mandates no standards whatsoever that protects gun owners from being tagged as "mental defectives" by literal partisan hacks bent on ridding the United States of private gun ownership.
With all of the above in mind, I highly recommend that you never say a word in public about your prescription drug usage. Without much trouble or legal obstacles, it could result in you being "adjudicated" to be incompetent to own/carry guns by people who have no professional training in determining such complicated medical diagnosis.
Otherwise, welcome, and good luck. May the Lord relieve you of all pain as you navigate this country's completely usurped version of "government of, by and for The People."
Blues
ETA: "Section 101" as-referenced above may have been the section in the bill itself before it was passed. I copied and pasted an excerpt of my own post from back in '07 when I was arguing against its passage. However, the law was passed and signed by Bush, and became law that same year. The language may be attached to different code section numbers now, but it was passed as-cited above.
