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It's time to put Pseudoephedrine back on store shelves and end the silly behind the counter failed war on drugs experiment. This result forces everyone to confr
by Sargos 3y ago
It's time to put Pseudoephedrine back on store shelves and end the silly behind the counter failed war on drugs experiment. This result forces everyone to confront that reality which damages egos and pride so it will be resisted but I'm glad science is finally winning out over hysteria.
- ravenstine 3y agoYou can still get it in the United States if you ask the pharmacist. But otherwise, yeah, it should just be on the shelf instead of behind the counter.
- MattGaiser 3y agoYou can get it in the USA if you show ID and ask the pharmacist.
- tyree731 3y agoYou're limited in the amount you can purchase at any given time, and it's (for me at least) often not available in the form I want it in, making it a real pain in the ass to rely on.
- nekoashide 3y agoThere's a very good reason it's behind the counter. I'm not talking about the people who need it as cold medicine, it's the people who buy it to make drugs and get high. Before it was placed behind the counter you couldn't even find it on shelves due to the amount of theft.
- patchtopic 3y agowith the chemists selling useless cold medicine but the streets EVEN MORE full of meth-heads than before, obviously this particular "war on (some) drugs" measure is a pathetic failure.
- felixgallo 3y agoThat’s not how logic works. It could be that it saved us from an even worse epidemic.
- EA-3167 3y agoThat's also not how logic works, if you want to claim that this measure was successful you need to offer convincing evidence in favor of that. The benefit of the doubt doesn't go to failed war on drugs policies.
- diogenes4 3y agoI'd imagine you'd still need a cost benefit analysis if this inquiry were done in good faith. Which in politics, especially when it comes to controlling drugs, it never is. The exception possibly being prohibition itself—but prohibition actually worked, in the sense that the rate of binge drinking dropped drastically. No such efficacy is obvious here and it seems like a really useful medicine.
- EA-3167 3y agoThe problem there is that alcohol is relatively high-volume, I mean a barrel of pure ethanol is still a barrel of pure ethanol. By contrast fentanyl for example can be effectively shipped, in commercial quantities, in the back of a sedan or human-portable luggage. Stopping binge drinking meant reducing the amount of available alcohol, a substance requiring large scale shipping and production, storage and so on. Modern drugs really don't have that problem, and for the ones that do, synthetic alternatives would just take over.
- scrapcode 3y agoWhat is your suggested solution?
- dude187 3y agoThere's no solution to drug use. There's only acceptance of this unwavering human reality. Now all the junkies on the street corner? Lock them up
- orev 3y agoThat’s the whole point of this discussion—that the reason it’s behind the counter (which everyone already knows is because of meth) is NOT actually a good reason to have it there.
- basch 3y agoRationing it so people who need it can have access to it is a bad reason? As someone who has bought it twice in the last decade, I'm glad it was available the day I went to the store looking for it. The price however is bananas, but I feel that way about all non generic brand name pills.
- Kerb_ 3y agoIt wasn't put behind the counter because meth makers were buying out the entire supply and leaving people with colds with none. It was put behind the counter to attempt to minimize meth makers buying it at all.
- calciphus 3y agoIf the reasoning was to prevent theft, why can I only buy one box at a time, and why does my license get scanned, preventing me from buying twice in the same week (or whatever) from different stores?
- undersuit 3y agoI was between 18-25 years of age and the Idaho pharmacist wouldn't sell to me with an out of state ID. Luckily my dad was perusing the magazines and they let an Idaho adult buy me my medicine. I just wanted a single box of Mucinex with pseudoephedrine for my cold.
- Simulacra 3y agoNot to mention every time they scan your license it goes on a list. XKCD made light of this very fact. https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/cold_medicine.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/cold_medicine.png
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoAlways post xkcd with the full link so that people can see the alt-text. Posting mobile version because mobile people dont't have alt-text on hover: https://m.xkcd.com/1618/ https://m.xkcd.com/1618/
- Simulacra 3y agohttps://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoAlways post xkcd with the full link so that people can see the alt-text. Posting mobile version because mobile people don't have alt-text on hover: https://m.xkcd.com/386/ https://m.xkcd.com/386/
- deleted 3y ago
- amluto 3y agoIn places with low rates of shoplifting (i.e. most places), this never seemed to be an issue. In any event, the restrictions on pseudoephedrine had huge societal costs (as a proxy, apparently at least $1.7B/yr is spent on useless “decongestants” [0] as a result), and I would hope it at least had corresponding benefits. But it doesn’t seem that meth has gotten any less available. [0] Presumably more. After all, if people have trouble buying a decongestant that works, might as well buy a homeopathic “decongestant” instead, which is probably safer than phenylephrine while being no less effective.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoIt's more available and cheaper than ever, can be made in bulk cheaply, resulting in a more harmful product.
- quickthrowman 3y agoMeth is now insanely cheap because it’s manufactured in industrial size Mexican labs with precursors from China and smuggled into the US, there’s no real incentive to manufacture it yourself when high purity meth is available for dirt cheap prices.
- txusrose 3y agoHow do you know meth is cheap? Nothing is cheap anymore.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoExcept it doesn't stop that at all. That's the whole point. Modern meth is just made in Mexico using industrial chemicals. Alarms have been raised that this could be even more harmful for the users.
- ykonstant 3y agoIt is far worse in my country (Greece). I am unemployed, and thus uninsured; this means that my psychiatrist cannot prescribe my medicine (Concerta in my case, a slow-acting version of Ritalin) because they are just so tightly controlled. Pseudoephedrine is similar. We the uninsured need to procure it from a public mental hospital, but the appointments are months away, so I cannot get any. So this medicine, which my psychiatrist considers essential, is just... denied to me; I have not taken it in 8 months, resulting in my barely being able to function, much less find the employment that would make me, you know, insured.
- shipscode 3y agoThat’s terrible. You may consider trying Yerba Mate. Anecdotally it’s helped a lot of people I know with ADHD. Perhaps something to try in the meantime. I hope the situation in your country gets better.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago> I am unemployed, and thus uninsured What the hell have we done to ourselves letting corporations be the gatekeepers of our health!? Having a job with benefits isn't a badge of honor, but corporations have convinced so many it is that I am unsure if this will ever change.
- txusrose 3y agoI agree, but, the way things are set up for the population, it is a badge of honor if you need dental work done and not have to pay out of pocket. It’s all been designed to control what we’re allowed and not allowed. Getting a large amount of our medications imported from China is completely absurd. Last year, China accounted for 95 percent of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91 percent of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70 percent of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40 to 45 percent of U.S. imports of penicillin and 40 percent of U.S. imports of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. Dec 20, 2019
- readthenotes1 3y agoSomeone I know smuggled some psuedofed to their friend in Colombia. They quipped "How many people have you heard getting busted for taking drugs into Colombia?"
- cameldrv 3y agoMeth is really bad. Having to ask the pharmacist for Sudafed is not that big of a deal. The prior situation where the cold medicine that's out in the middle of the store is ineffective was worse IMO because people reasonably assume that if they're selling it then it should work. If you tell them that they have to ask the pharmacist, they'll just do that and get something that works.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- P_I_Staker 3y agoThis does nothing to stop meth.
- Simulacra 3y agoPseudoephedrine is one of many precursors to making meth. Putting it behind the counter and requiring an ID, AND limiting how much could be bought, was all a heavy handed way of trying to stop meth production. Instead the tweakers found new ways. I could not agree more, it's become asinine.
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoAnd with that ban all the homeopathic stuff.