If you take bupropion short term, you are grounded for the duration. If you take it long term, you must get a psychiatric exam for reissuance. You most definitely must report it.
From Bruce Chien's August medical column in T&T:
The most common questions I get are: (1) What can I take to stop smoking?. (2) What can I take for sleep? And (3) Why can’t I take my Prozac and fly?
As many of you are aware, buproprion for smoking cessation, is completely verboten. This drug is actually an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) and has numerous side effects. They’re variable but the notables are constipation, dizziness, hypertension, dry mouth, blurry vision, agitation, confusion, anxiety, and hostility. Nicoderm has the same list. As it turns out, so does Chantix. Why is this? It’s because all three drugs act on the autonomic nervous system, that silent body regulation system that determines if your blood vessels are dilated or constricted, bronchi are open or closed, eye focusable or not, and whether your bowels do their thing or not. Most of the disagreeable side effects from cessation of smoking are mediated along this neurologic system, and blocking the manifestations is key to making smoking cessation work.
As I surmised some months ago, Chantix (Varenicycline) has just been (May 08) disapproved by the FAA. It’s really quite similar to one of the drugs that we use in operative anesthesiology, to manipulate the ability of nerves to transmit to muscle. Any manipulation of this system is likely to produce all of the side effects in the preceeding list- and will eventually find disapproval. I can’t recommend any of the side effects on that list to an airman. Downright disagreeable, they are.
So now I hear that “the FAA would rather you smoke than quit, isn’t that backwards?” But I couch the problem in different terms: the FAA would rather you be competent on THIS flight TODAY, and leave you to your own long term decision making as to smoking or nonsmoking. When you develop smoker’s lung, there’s a special issuance for that if you can still make the grade.
snip
So, if you are going to try one of the medications, even if it’s buproprion, you’re grounded for the period of time of use, even if for smoking cessation.
As a further example of the practical approach chosen by the agency, if the exposure to the SSRI is less than 180 days, the AME is given the authority to make the determination that such usage is NOT a marker for one of the life long psychiatric disorders and that the need was truly transient. But over 180 days, expect a full psychiatric evaluation. They have to draw the line somewhere.