This is just stupid. Cold medicine like Sudafed is being moved behind the counter because if someone bought enough of it, they can cook meth with it.
Really, I just want one box to kick this cold. Why make it that much more difficult for me? If I want three cases of the stuff, call the cops. I just to stop a stuffy head and runny nose. I’m not a junkie.
It goes even further than that: Kansas and Missouri–as two examples–have both enacted laws requiring a person to show an ID and sign a log at the pharmacy when buying these OTC drugs. If the store has no pharmacy or pharmacist on duty, you’re out of luck.
I live in meth central. For several years, the law has been that you just can’t buy more than 3 at a time; the packages were still out on the shelves. It didn’t help. I think people were just sweeping the shelves clean and running. So they’re trying something else.
No, it’s not convenient, but neither is finding children living in hellishly filthy meth labs, or cleaning up the toxic messes that cookers dump anywhere they please. So I can’t blame them for trying to slow the manufacturing.
Hey, at least you don’t live in Denmark. When I lived there 15 years ago, you had to go to an official pharmacy (not a grocery store or something) for everything, even aspirin, and it was all behind the counter, and they had regular shop hours.
BTW, I remember a while back there was a thread asking about meth effects/disease and so on. Last week I found some answers to that question: look here on the “info” page for long-term effects, and the “gallery” for some photos chronicling what it does to people. From last week, an article showing some lab busts, effects on cookers in large labs (brought from Mexico illegally, they die in about 5 years), and children in homes. This is the local free weekly paper, the one that would carry the SD and Brezny’s astrology etc.
While they’re at it, maybe we can push them to pass laws against vandalism, pollution, and child neglect.
I went into WalMart on Saturday to get Mrnonacetone some Tylenol Sinus pills. They asked for my drivers license and I had to sign for them, too. They are kept behind the counter in the pharmacy. I don’t know how much of the stuff I can buy within a given time period, but we go through these things like TicTacs. For legit sinus problems. NOT for making dope with. Jeez.
I live in west central Indiana. The town I live in, which has less than 300 people in it (very rural and ‘hickish’), has a meth bust at least once a month. We’ve got a couple of old, practically abandoned cemeteries at the outskirts of town, and they make the stuff there. They also make it in their homes.
It really pisses me off that WE have to do all this extra garbage because of the methheads. But, if it’ll do anything to keep it off the streets, I guess it’s not that big of a deal to spend 5 extra minutes showing ID and signing stuff.
I don’t know.
Slight hijack…I was recently in Chico on business…what a nice little town you have (apparently I missed the meth lab portion of the tour).
It’s odd, but here in IL, some stores make you sign a roster, and some don’t. It makes no sense. My local Osco does not, and the Wal-Mart does.
As for making people sign for the OTC Sudafed, why don’t they just make it a prescription again? I know it would be a huge hassle, but if the FDA is that concerned, make people get an Rx for it. I doubt very much that any doctor woudl gripe about that.
-Cem
Because sometimes I just have a cold. Just a cold. I don’t want to pay $35 to see the doctor, wait an hour or more, to be told, “Oh you have a cold- here.” Then I’d have to wait at the pharmacy and pay extra for that.
No sir, I’d rather keep my $5 Sudafed easily accessible.
Only slightly off-topic, but what makes meth manufacture so dangerous? How is it made?
(Disclaimer: I’m not looking for an exact recipe. I do not wish to make it. I do not wish to condone illegal activity. And I do not wish to expose the Chicago Reader to the possibility of a lawsuit. I’m just trying to gain some insight into this very stupid drug.)
It involves cooking volatile combinations of chemicals that can explode if they aren’t correctly handled. Not to mention that it produces a bunch of toxic byproducts that are, obviously, not going to be disposed of correctly.
I’m typically pretty accepting of people’s habits and vices, but methheads are just vile. Stinky-assed, black-mouthed, oozing balls of skank.
What, like in a frying pan? And what chemicals? Are we talking alcohol? Sulfer? Nitro?
This page from the Oklahoma City PD lists “things to look for” like alcohol, HEET, Starting fluid, Drain cleaner, Propane cylinders, Acetone, Paint thinner, Lye, Freon, Chloroform and Camp stove fuel.
I used to take a sudafed based nasal spray for my blood pressure (as per my doctor). In Texas you are only supposed to have something like 3 sudafed products a month. Well I go through way more than that a month. It was such a hassle …I ended up going to my doctor, and she put me on a prescription medication. More expensive but definately better than the annoyance of being a suspected meth cook.
It won’t. Nothing they do ever does. It’s just a massive waste of time and effort punishing the rest of us for what a few do.
tdn, cooking is usually done on skillets or with electric burners that I’ve seen.
Psuedoephedrine, phosphorus, lye, muriatic acid, acetone, kerosene, etc. are all used. The pseudoephedrine, phophorus, and iodine are the main components, but everything else is necessary to process it.
You could find a complete recipe on google in about two seconds if you’re really interested.
Isn’t it a great place? I love it here. The meth problems are throughout the county and mostly rural or in the poorer houses and apartments–we supply a large chunk of the Bay Area’s meth habit. But about 70% of our crime is directly linked to meth production or use, and about 2/3 of the children in foster care are there because of meth-addicted parents; we have a huge number of them, and there’s virtually no hope of them going home, since meth is one of the hardest drugs to kick.
Otherwise, Chico is one of the best places in CA to live, IMO.
Why labs are so dangerous: the chemicals used to make meth are quite toxic and unstable. Meth labs are often detected when they blow up. The production results in a lot of poisonous sludge left over, which is then dumped. Cookers aren’t the cleverest or most careful of people, and they are notoriously careless about any kind of hygiene–meth addicts stop eating, cleaning, or fixing, and tend to fill their bathrooms and sinks with needles and chemicals. The pipes corrode from the chemicals, so the plumbing breaks and no one repairs it. The chemicals used in cooking get into the walls and carpets of the homes and are pretty much impossible to get out, so a home that has been used as a lab will make the next occupants sick, despite remodeling and repainting.
I forget all the ingredients, but red phosphorous, lye and other strong acids are part of the recipe. The link I posted above has some info on that.
That’s exactly what a meth junkie would say. Exactly. :dubious:
Thanks.
Forgive my naivette, but is meth then just some form of really concentrated bronchdilator? Is it a stimulant? Does it come in pill form, or is it smoked, or what?
Or should I just google and leave y’all alone?
I swear the college I went to paid the tuitions of scads of MIT students, but one thing I never encountered was meth.
I had this problem last winter. I felt awful. I didn’t want to leave the house any more than necessary. I went to Rite-Aid to get medicine – a box of Sudafed, two bottles of store-brand ‘DayQuil’, and a bottle of store-brand ‘NyQuil’. Nope. Pick three out of four. Jeez, you can tell by looking at me that A) I’m not a meth addict, and B) I’m sick. Sorry, you can only buy three. :mad:
I went home, did something or other, then went back and got the other bottle of medicine. Bugger thing to do to sick people. I just might ‘stock up’ for next time.
But he’d probably be a lot less congested than I am when saying it.
FTR, stores here in NYC, where it’s spreading among club kids and young gay men (the same morons who are having unprotected sex) have a very mixed record on it. In poorer neighborhoods you can’t get it from the shelves but have to go to the pharmacist and sign out for it, although you don’t need a prescription (good for those of us with no insurance and no doctor to begin with). I see it on the shelves in Manhattan and Westchester, though; I’ll check next time I’m in gay neighborhoods in Manhattan, though. I don’t think we have a lot of meth labs here, since, like guns, we can import meth cheaply from the boondocks.
I use the non-drowsy Sudafed to cope with my brother’s doggies, one of whom is a shaggy beagle-like creature that sheds like a sweater, and during the hot muggy afternoons in May and June when the tree pollen is making me sound like Darth Vader.