A Vancouver man's ADHD meds turned into a 20-year prison sentence
Simon Rovensky brought his prescribed Adderall to Georgia. Now his family is fighting to get him home.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
Nika Rovensky is supposed to be studying for finals. Instead, she's trying to figure out how to get her brother out of an Eastern European prison.
Simon Rovensky, a 24-year-old from Vancouver, was arrested at Tbilisi Airport in late May when he arrived in Georgia with a friend. His alleged crime: drug smuggling. The contraband: his own one-month supply of Adderall, prescribed to treat his diagnosed ADHD.
"He just disappeared," Nika said. "We literally did not know where he was, and we were just watching the hours tick by, really frantically because we just, we didn't know."
Simon had documentation for the medication — the orange pharmacy container with his name, his doctor's name, and the prescription label. But Georgian officials wouldn't accept it because it was in the wrong format. Now he faces up to 20 years behind bars.
The family says Global Affairs Canada left them to fend for themselves. Simon spends 23 hours a day in a six-person cell.
"He was carrying it in the orange container that you get from the pharmacy," Nika explained. "It has his name on it, his doctor's name on it." That should have been enough. It wasn't.
The problem runs deeper than one family's nightmare. Global Affairs Canada's website carries a caution for Georgia noting that bringing certain medications into the country could have serious consequences. But the warning is buried near the bottom of the page, not prominently displayed.
"If there's something as commonly prescribed as Adderall in Canada that can get you 20 years in prison in a foreign country, that should be the first thing that you read about in a travel advisory. That should be top of the page in bright red letters," Nika said.
The issue affects countless Canadians. Many common medications — not just ADHD drugs, but pain medications, SSRIs that millions of people take for depression and anxiety — are subject to Georgia's strict controlled-substance laws.
Simon has worked since he was 15 to help support his family. Now his family is fighting a foreign legal system with limited consular support, hoping to bring him home.
"This isn't just for ADHD medication," Nika said. "It's for your pain medication, for your SSRIs, which you know so many people are taking." The family hopes their story serves as a wake-up call: check your medications before you travel, and push the Canadian government to make travel warnings clearer and more prominent.