My Story
Ryan Brandstrom, in his own words: ADHD, the Adderall shortage, and the day federal agents came to our door.
A lifetime with ADHD
My name is Ryan Brandstrom. I have lived with ADHD my whole life. It has always been very, very difficult for me to focus and to get things done. I’m not complaining — that has simply been my challenge.
On my prescribed medicine, I was a new person. I could stay focused. I could spend real, quality time with my wife and our five kids and actually be present for them. I could go to work and do a good job.
Then the medicine disappeared
I had a legitimate prescription. I called one pharmacy — no. I called another — no. I talked to my doctor and to every pharmacist I could reach, and no one could get it anywhere in the state. They told me there was a nationwide shortage, and they had no idea when it would be available again — for me, or for anyone else with ADHD.
My life didn’t stop. I still wanted to be a father and a husband, and I still needed to go to work. So I did what everyone else was doing: I went without. You hope the medicine will be back in a day or two, so you push through on willpower. Then a week passes. Then another. My mental and physical health deteriorated rapidly. I couldn’t be present for my family, and I couldn’t do my job well. Every week I checked with pharmacists, with doctors, online — anywhere — asking the same question: when will it be available?
More about the nationwide Adderall shortage →
Thousands of people in the same boat
Online I found forums full of people just like me — thousands of ADHD patients who couldn’t fill their prescriptions and were trying to figure out how to keep their lives together. We shared what we knew and supported each other. We were all going through the same medical challenge. I had found my tribe.
The federal government says that what I did next to help myself and the people in that community was a crime. I will tell that part of the story to the jury in court, where it belongs. What I can tell you here is this: I was never a narcotics dealer. This was ADHD medicine — not heroin, not fentanyl. I was trying to survive, and I believed I was helping people who were suffering the same way I was. No one was harmed.
The raid
There were no letters. No calls. Nothing. Then, in December 2023, federal agents showed up at our home to execute a search warrant. My wife and five children were there. Armed agents stormed the house, screaming, with guns pointed at my family and at me. We were terrified. My kids were terrified.
That is how I found out there was a federal investigation claiming I was selling narcotics.
Losing everything
During the investigation, agents contacted my employer and told them I was a narcotics dealer. I lost my job. They contacted my banks. My accounts were closed and the money I had was seized — all on the assumption that I was dealing narcotics. I was trying to hold my family together, and I didn’t even understand what was happening.
Standing up for myself in federal court
In August 2024 the government filed its case, United States v. Brandstrom, in federal court in Minnesota. The charges carry the threat of many years in federal prison — long enough that my youngest children could be grown by the time I came home.
I have chosen to represent myself. I want to be the one who tells my story to the jury, in full, in my own words. My trial begins on Friday, October 23, 2026, in Courtroom 7A of the federal courthouse in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“I’m not a perfect person. But I don’t believe a father should be taken from his five kids for years because the medicine he was prescribed disappeared from every pharmacy in the country. I’m not a narcotics dealer. I was somebody who needed ADHD medicine, and I was trying to help people who needed it too.”— Ryan Brandstrom