but if you are traveling in the US, and TSA finds prescription drugs in your possession, they had better be in the bottles that came from the pharmacy, and have everything on the label all legit.

 
I found this out the hard way while traveling with my daughter who needed Ritalin, but we had put the pills in one of those daily dose thingies where you have the little compartments where you place each day's dose, and it is labeled on the door to the compartment.

The TSA confiscated it, and nearly wrecked a family vacation until we got someone there to talk to our doctor on the phone and they begrudgingly gave back the drugs.

It's would have been nice had we known about this trap.

By the way, we also learned that pharmacies will put up medicines in blister packs (for a considerable fee, however) that are all labeled that will pass muster when traveling.

I take a number of prescription meds and I inject myself daily as well (Diabetes). I pack my meds in the kind of week by eek pack otherwise I would carry a huge volume of bottle meds and I carry my diabetic meds with needles in a cold pack with a frozen block to keep it cold. I have been stopped occasionally, most often leaving Britain, because they need to be sure the pack is indeed frozen otherwise it would be a large quantity of liquid that could be a bomb.  Otherwise I have never been bothered. I guess if I were stopped I could write myself a note from a doctor.  You experience was unusual and really could have been dangerous as you point out.  I will call the TSA because this would also affect my patients.  I need to knwo if this was a fluke or policy.
Hope all is well with you my friend.

There is no federal law requiring meds to be transported by patients in their original containers.  And, no, you don't have to carry your meds in their original bottles and with the prescription to fly on a domestic flight.  It even says so on the TSA website.  You have to go through the kabuki dance with them if you have a "medically-necessary" liquid in excess of 1.4oz.  Recognize that a TSA clerk with perhaps a GED will decide what is "medically necessary."  

I travel a lot and my advice is to NEVER take this crap from the TSA if they try to confiscate pills in whatever form you choose to carry them.  Recognize that they love to catch people with any amount of pot.  It makes for good press (even though it's not in their mission to do drug searches) and the individual clerks get bonuses.

Same is true if you're stopped by the police while driving. If your medication isn't in the proper container and you're poor, lower or working class or a minority you're likely to be arrested and go to jail.

The same can happen to affluent white men but is less likely.

If you've violated an obvious traffic law and your car is searched, the police had better not find anything not packaged properly. If they do, again, jail. So don't just assume that your teenage son or daughter or his or her friends have left nothing in your car. You may find yourself paying a steep penalty for their foolishness.

And of course if they're caught with said items they will be arrested, have a record and their lives essentially ruined, even if all charges are eventually dropped. Records are never expunged in the US.

I always put it in a Rx bottle from another Rx..

Not to say that it couldn't happen, but travel with it all the time. I keep it in its blister pack, though and not separate pills. I have a lot of meds, never had a problem internationally or domestically. I did get stopped once for carrying equine medicine (about a liquid quart for veterinary purposes). They sniffed it handed them my business card, and was on my way no problem.

Sounds like you targeted for whatever reason, random or otherwise. If they pulled over every person who had Viagara the lines would be far longer, far worse, and everybody with legitimate meds would be seriously pissed off.

international is another story, especially depending on the country (muslim, middle east and asia).

It never fails for me when I leave from the airport by me that they pull my drug bag out. It sits there for 30 minutes, and then they swab it for explosives...or something. But when I go through Miami, they send it right through. I always keep the meds in the original bottle, because I do travel with script narcotics. My doctor even wrote out "a note" on a script pad that I needed to take the opiates. But, I'm not too fond of the idiot TSA agent broadcasting to everybody else about my meds....idiot

I put my daily vitamins and prescription meds in a small plastic container that has separate compartments for each day. I put my sildenafil pills in a little dispenser that used to contain small mints. So I never have any in their original prescription containers. I've traveled to dozens of countries with this setup in my carry-on suitcase and never been stopped or searched.