If you live in Iowa, and you have a youngster with a stuffy nose…go to the local drug store and try to buy some “Simply Stuffy”.
Chances are…you can’t. Iowa has passed legislation to make it harder to purchase pseudoephedrine. Pseduoephedrine (in case you live in a cave) is a component used in the manufacture of crystal meth. I have heavy seasonal allergies, so I used to stock up on pseduephedrine. I remember being able to buy bottles of 50 or 100 tablets dirt cheap. Then they restricted the AMOUNT you could purchase at one time.
Now the restrictions work like this…there is no cold medication on the shelves that containt pseudoephedrine. You have to purchase the drug from a pharmacist. AND you have to sign a log book and show a photo ID.
In addition to being a royal pain in the ass, the pharmacies don’t want any more hassle then needed. So, they have vastly cut down on the products that contain the drug. (Walmart told me they cut the list from 60 or so down to 20 or so). Included in the cut is Simply Stuffy, a flavored liquid decongestant for kids. I have not come across ANY stores that currently carry it. There are some stores that carry shotgun remedies (decongestant, cough suppressant, fever reducer stc…). But if you only want a liquid decongestant for your kid…good fucking luck,
Walgreens is the ONLY store in my town that carries any sort of liquid decongestant for kids…their in-house brand, which our 4 year old has decided tastes like axle grease.
Well.
But at least this is helping the meth problem…right?
Just wait until they make it a DEA-controlled substance!
It’s a shitty drug anyway. They took the good stuff (phenylpropanolamine, common trade name: Entex) off the market about 5 years ago, more’s the pity.
But if your allergies are that bad, try asking your doc about nasal steroids, loratadine, or even Accolate or Singulair. Those actually deal with the allergic response, not just the symptoms (which is all pseudoephedrine does).
Ice is a very, very addictive and dangerous substance. I knew a girl in Hawaii who got addicted to the stuff and blew thousands of dollars on it. She was working as a stripper - and making good money - when one day her neighbors heard screaming from her quarters. They rushed over to see what was wrong, to find her stark naked in the living room tearing her hair out in handfuls and screaming - with her 3 children under the age of 5 standing around her in tears. The MP’s took her off to a substance abuse center, her kids got put in foster care, and her husband (who was attending OCS at Fort Benning in Georgia) got a call to get his ass home. We left the islands shortly after that, so I don’t know what happened, but I have read the relapse rate is very high among ice users.
Crystal Meth production and use is on the rise, especially in the midwest. It is a huge problem here in Michigan.
If legislation to make the purchase of this devistating drug’s ingredients more difficult is not the answer, what should be done to deal with the problem then?
They’ve done it in Texas too, with the same results re: availability.
The only antihistamine that works really well for me is triprolidine, which used to be sold as Actidil. It does make me drowsy, though, so I take a combination of Singulaire and Claritin in the daytime and Actifed at night, because Actifed is a combination drug containing triprolidine…and pseudoephedrine.
I have to go through all that bullshit to obtain a drug I don’t even fucking need or want.
I find that it works well when I get really sinusy. Every other drug I’ve taken for sinus issues has nasty side-effects for me, but not the little red Sudafed.
You have to ask a pharmacist for pseudoephedrine in CA now, too, but you don’t have to sign for it.
They are threatening to make it by prescription only, which really ticks me off as it adds the hassle and expense of a getting the doctor to write the prescription and no doubt will make the pills more expensive as well.
Will these measures have any effect whatsoever on the meth supply?
That’s an excellent question. And a hard one to answer. The “war on drugs” hasn’t had too many sucessful easy answers (if any).
Just because it’s the only answer come up with so far doesn’t make it a good one. We have resrictions here in New Jersey, which I think are fairly reasonable. Keep it behind the counter (so people can’t steal whole shelfloads) and put a reasonable restriction on how much you can buy at one time. Enough that it is not a viable outlet for meth producers, but not enough to keep it off the shelves for people (like beagledave jr.) who need it.
Seems reasonable to me. Certainly not reasonable to restrict it right off the shelves and then believe because you’ve taken extreme measures you’ve actually done something.
The active ingredients in the standard Robitussin are dextromethorphan and guaifenisin. If you get the sinus congestion formula, it’s dextromethorphan and pseudoephedrine, but I suspect that might not be useful for the purpose intended. Same deal with Nyquil - pseudoephedrine is listed fourth in the active ingredients. Just a thought.
The one thing restricting OTC selling of pseudoephedrine does it cut down on the number of exploding hotel rooms, garages, apartments, backyard sheds, and car trunks. Seriously, Gary, Indiana had a brief epidemic of exploding car trunks last summer from portable home-brew meth labs going >BOOM<
In that respect, it’s been effective.
It’s bad enough if the neighbors are doing drugs… it’s worse if they burn the house down while “cooking” their drugs. Not to mention the haz-mat problem.
So, maybe it hasn’t cleaned up drug abuse, but it has cut down on some of the side effects.
In Arkansas you’ve got to purchase it from the pharmacist. Wal-Mart has these little plastic cards on the shelves where the actual medicine used to be. You take one of those cards to the pharmacist and I guess he’ll give you the medicine. I don’t know if you have to sign for it because we’re not at Wal-Mart when the pharmacy is open. It’s not putting a huge damper on our lives as we rarely use that kind of medicine but it’s enough of a pain in the ass for me notice.
