Stupid Sudafed laws

[picunurse]

@Irishman

So I have allergies. I had been taking Claritin, and following with OTC decongestants. The thing is, they don’t make the decongestants in an extended release formula, and it is only somewhat effective, so I would be taking it every 4 to 6 hours and getting periods of more and less congestion.

I finally decided to try Claritin-D, i.e. with sudafed. Now the thing is, this stuff is no longer OTC. I mean, it doesn’t require a prescription, but they keep it behind the pharmacy counter and you have to see the pharmacist to get it, so it is still controlled.

Anyway, I tried it out and it works pretty good. I found the 12 hr formula works a bit better at keeping my dose balanced. All great.

Except for the stupid law controlling the amount a person can buy. What does it say?

1. No individual can buy more than 3.5 mg in one day. 3.5 mg is equivalent to 15 days dosage.

2. No individual can buy more than 9.0 mg in a 30 day period. That is a 30 day period from date of sale, so if I want to buy today, May 13, that checks back to April 13 (15 days ago) to see how much I have bought in that period.

3. Purchasers must be 16 or older.

Okay, so I start trying to buy it. Now I like to buy early so I have it when I need it, and I like to buy in bulk so I don’t have to make as many trips to purchase it. The 15 day max supply means more frequent trips. That’s annoying enough.

But the 9 mg in a 30 period is a killer. Because the thing is, with the 30 day limit, I cannot buy a consistent package size or regular schedule.

Packaging comes in a few sizes: 1.2 mg (5 days), 2.4 mg (10 days), and 3.6 mg (15 days).

Suppose I buy my first batch on Apr 1, and get the 15 day pack. That is 3.6 mg, okay. Next I need to buy the second batch, so I buy it on Apr 13 (2 days early), another 3.6 mg. Fine. Now I am going to hit day 30 on Apr 30. I want to get it early so I have it on May 1. So I go to the store on Apr 28 (2 days early). Let’s see, last 30 days I have bought 3.6 + 3.6 = 7.2 mg. I can only buy 9.0 mg in a 30 day period. So I cannot buy 3.6 mg. I cannot buy 2.4 mg. Fortunately, they sell a 1.2 mg package.

But that’s silly. Those 5 days I am buying on Apr 28 I will not start taking until May 1. Most (all) of that purchase will be taken in a completely different 30 day period than the first purchase. I am buying ahead. But I can’t because of the 9 mg limit.

I’ve looked at the math. I have juggled package sizes and purchase schedules. Basically I cannot buy a consistent package size and purchase schedule unless I buy my next dose after I run out! Wait until May 1 and buy the 3.6 mg, sure, but I need to have it to take my May 1 morning pill. Or run to the store on the way to work.

Talk about a pain in the ass.

And that’s for me, a single person. What do you do if you have a kid with allergies, too?

I understand the concern about it being used as a precursor for meth. But this implementation is ridiculous.

Where are YOU? Here, 3 grams in a months is the limit.

[urban1a]

@Blaster_Master

… poorly thought out …

There are well thought out laws?

Bob

[SeaDragonTattoo]

@picunurse

Where are YOU? Here, 3 grams in a months is the limit.

Considering the 12-hour tablets contain 120mg, I think he means grams.

[Student_Driver]

@Cheez_Whia

Another reason to keep it behind the counter is to stop theft. I’m pretty sure most of it that went to making meth wasn’t actually purchased.

That’s a happy side effect, and I one of the reasons pharmacies didn’t really complain when the law went into effect. Hell, I was thankful, because beforehand, I had to stay in the pharmacy at all times to act as a guard in addition to stocking the place. I got to know many of the local meth makers on sight, and would sweep all of the PSE into boxes and hide them… then spend an hour rebuilding the modular when they left. Stopping internal theft was much harder; it came in the normal store freight, and cases of it would mysteriously disappear before making it out for sale. Now it gets delivered securely with prescription medications. Our theft-related shrink dropped over $10,000 a year after the law took effect.

Some retail groups have been pushing for detromethorphan (which isn’t a precursor to anything, just recreationally abused) to be legally restricted primarily because of the theft issue, and a number of chains have begun putting it behind the counter already.

[SeaDragonTattoo]

@SeaDragonTattoo

Considering the 12-hour tablets contain 120mg, I think he means grams.

Plus, I’m dabbling in suggestive math today and so did not follow the entire OP. :smack:

[pbbth]

@Broomstick

Well, my area also has fewer trailer parks, hotel rooms, and car trunks blowing up as fewer locals are cooking their own. Which is a plus, of sorts. I doubt meth consumption has gone down, and as noted it’s now supplied by Mexican drug cartels, but local damage from sloppy production has gone down.

This is actually a really big deal. I went to college in a town that manufactured a lot of meth and it wasn’t strange to see a huge fire in the woods every month or so because someone was making meth in a shed out there and managed to blow it up. If this law isn’t stopping people from using meth but it is stopping people from making meth it is still making the US a safer place to be so I fully support it. I am a benadryl and zyrtec user though so I don’t have to go through the rigamarole others do to get my allergy meds.

[Irishman]

@Machine_Elf

Talk to your doc. Maybe you can get a prescription that will let you get the dosage you need, with refills available when you need them?

I may do that, if only to exchange one hassle (tracking purchases) for another (getting a prescription).

I’m trying to figure out a buying pattern that will work. What I’ve come up with is either having to rotate 1- 15 day followed by 2- 10 day, or 2- 15 day followed by 1- 5 day packages. Grrr.

I understand it pisses you off, but is it ridiculous? Do you see a better way to fight meth production that would make things less inconvenient for us non-producers? If so, share your idea with your elected officials.

It seems silly to implement this wholey new and poorly thought out policy to control a substance when there is another process in place for controlling substances - prescriptions. They’ve managed to keep it non-prescription, but I still have to see the actual pharmacy employee during pharmacy hours, and pay separately at the pharmacy counter rather than taking it with the rest of my shopping to the front, like with everything else.

Other ways it is silly - it makes no allowance for there to be more than one allergy sufferer in the family. I suppose one can actually get prescriptions, I don’t know. I haven’t actually pursued that. But the current implementation requires a driver’s license to track your purchases, and individuals can only buy some bare minimum over a 30 day supply within a 30 day window, without any consideration to the dosing schedule.

How about selling it in packages of 16 days, so I have a buffer day? Rather than having to buy some weird package of 5 every couple purchases? That is limited by the 3.6 grams in 1 day rule. Make it 3.9 grams in a day. Then I can still meet the 9 grams a month limit but my two 16 day purchases means I have a buffer day so I can buy before I run out and still buy a consistent package size rather than have to play guessing games of “Can I buy this one now or not?”

How about letting me buy 9.6 grams in a 30 day window so I can consistently buy a 10 day package and get a fourth 10 day package before I run out? How about tracking a 90 day window in addition to the 30 day window to fight the trick of accumulating those overages, so a 90 day limit of 24 grams would allow me to buy 10 - 10 day packages, 1 more package than the 90 pills I need. That pushes the “overage” from once a month to once every 3 months.

Reduce the amount of math and calendar tracking that I, personally, have to do at the time of purchase.

@AngelSoft

Hell, if the guy at the pharmacy was right, we can’t even BUY traditional sudafed otc anymore. My mom had to drive to Washington to get some. It’s been replaced here in Oregon by some…sudafed…ish…thing that doesn’t have the normal active ingredient of Sudafed.

There is an OTC decongestant called phenylephrine that is the current default in all OTC decongestant products. Sudafed markets a version called “Sudafed PE”. It is not pseudephedrine, it is pheylephrine.

Phenylephrine is not as effective as pseudephedrine, there is marginal evidence it actually works. For me it seems to work a little, but not as long as the dosing schedule. It works about 2.5 to 3 hours and it’s dosing is 1 every 4 hours. Thus my desire to shift to pseudephedrine.

Pseudephedrine is available, it is technically considered OTC as it does not require a prescription, but the control laws require it to be behind the pharmacy counter and purchases are tracked and a limit is in place.

@Shakes

What’s stopping you from going to one pharmacy one day then going to another pharmacy another day? Are they all networked or something?

Yes, they scan your Driver’s License and report through a central database that registers your purchases and how much you have bought. It keeps a rolling 30 day window. Try to buy too much, they get a rejection and a ticket with a code, you go to the website and it will restate the laws on amount and what your amount within the last 30 days is.

@Broomstick

I think different states have different purchase limits. The limits noted by the OP seem a bit more onerous than the ones where I live, and I can legally purchase up to 96 doses at a time rather than 48, but I still have to be careful about the 90 day limits.

Really? That would be great. I can’t get more than a 15 day supply on any day and I can’t buy more than 9 grams (thanks for pointing out the error) in a 30 day period. That means I cannot buy a 15 day supply on day 29 before I run out, but have to wait until after I run out. Or buy a 5 day supply, and come back to the store 3 days later.

Fortunately, I don’t require pseudeoephedrine (the active ingredient that causes all the fuss) every day. I purchase it separately from my other allergy meds. Sure, that’s more pills to take but I can then tailor the day’s dose to what I actually need based on symptoms.

I need decongestant in addition to antihistamine. Actually, Allegra works better than Claritin for me, but Allegra also turns my appetite on overdrive - I cannot get full, and remain hungry. So I use Claritin and decongestant.

A friend of mine decided to only bother with a 12 hour period each day, so she buys the 12 hour packages and takes 1 a day. That way she can pretty much buy as she wants, as she never gets near the 9 gram limit. Of course she has congestion problems 12 hours every day. I need to be able to breath at night.

@picunurse

Where are YOU? Here, 3 grams in a months is the limit.

Crap, yes it is 9 grams in a 30 day window. Where is it 3 grams in 30 days?

[QUOTE=Ambivalid]
I feel like a tweaker when I’m going through the drills at the pharmacy counter and I’m being leered at by the pharmacist like I’m part of a underground drug ring. I can’t help it.
[/quote]

So I try to buy a package, they scan the ID, it rejects me, the pharmacist asks, “Have you bought some of this recently?” Well of course I have, I use it every day. What a stupid question. How about you tell me that the record shows I’m at 7.2 grams for the last 30 days, so I can do some math and figure out that I can buy a 5 day purchase today rather than try to figure out if my purchase 2 or 3 times ago was on the day before or 2 days before I ran out, so I know when that 30 day window clears that previous purchase?

[Kevbo]

This subject really pisses me off, so forgive me if in skimming the thread I missed a reference to this pdf that offers a simple solution to the OP’s quandary.

A quick search of several neighborhoods of the United
States revealed that while pseudoephedrine is difficult to
obtain, N-methylamphetamine can be procured at almost any
time on short notice and in quantities sufficient for synthesis
of useful amounts of the desired material. Moreover,
according to government maintained statistics, N-methylmphetamine is becoming an increasingly attractive
starting material for pseudoephedrine, as the availability of N-methylmphetamine has remained high while prices have
dropped and purity has increased [2]. We present here a
convenient series of transformations using reagents which can
be found in most well stocked organic chemistry laboratories
to produce psuedoephedrine from N-methylamphetamine.

[orderfire]

Damn, it’s a good thing that posession or purchase of PSE isn’t a Constitutional right or anything.

Every fucking time I go to buy Sudafed, I get carded and have to sign for it because some relatively small percentage of the population who I have never seen or personally interacted with is doing something illegal and dangerous with it. Each time, I wonder how many (fill in the blank, anti-national firearm registry, background check, ammo purchase limit, Wayne LaPierre’s mom, whatever) people who are also law-abiding users of Sudafed have already comfortably adapted to it.

[TBG]

@Sicks_Ate

If it accomplished anything, it squeezed meth production from one jurisdiction to another. More meth comes from Mexico, now, for example. So yes, less meth is produced in large batches in the US now. The cost of that is extreme inconvenience to people who have severe allergies, and a reason for Mexican drug cartels to sustain their drug war.

But who cares if people die in drug wars, right? It’s not like they’re Americans.

I’d rather a meth lab be off someplace in Mexico than next door to me when it blows up or turns the house so toxic that it’s not fit for human habitation anymore. Not that a meth lab is pretty likely in my neighborhood either way, but there are more concerns than just where the flow drug traffic starts.

That said, I also agree they’re kinda overboard on the sudafed restrictions. Pretty crazy how it’s sometimes easier to get pot.

[Irishman]

Jay Leno made the joke the other night, with allergy season here, meth dealers are making a killing manufacturing sudafed.

[soufeyez812]

OK So Meth Is taking over the world. And to get it to stop we will pass a law on how much someone can buy. Im sorry but thats ignorant. Because anyone can buy it so to stop the manufacturing of crystal meth you make it impossible to get the stuff to make it Make people get a presciption for Sudafedrine Would of been a lot more effective than limiting the amount anyone can go purchase. for the dope man lol really though Im just saying and If you retally wanna stop this drugin its tracks make people have to show a I.D. for all the ingrediants thats used to make it not just sudafed…I just think this law was passed to make people think the Governnment Cares about uss and are doing there job my opinnion though…Sorry about the Spelling my cellphone is messsed up…

[Eva_Luna]

@Irishman

There is an OTC decongestant called phenylephrine that is the current default in all OTC decongestant products. Sudafed markets a version called “Sudafed PE”. It is not pseudephedrine, it is pheylephrine.

Phenylephrine is not as effective as pseudephedrine, there is marginal evidence it actually works. For me it seems to work a little, but not as long as the dosing schedule. It works about 2.5 to 3 hours and it’s dosing is 1 every 4 hours. Thus my desire to shift to pseudephedrine.

Claritin usually works for me for allergies, but a few years ago, shortly after they reformulated Sudafed, I had a wicked sinus infection and bought some Sudafed to tide me over until I could get to the doctor. Within an hour, my blood pressure had shot up 40 points over what it normally is (we actually had a nurse’s office at that job, with blood pressure monitors and everything - I checked), and my heart was pounding. Being a tad sensitive to stimulants of any kind, I checked the label to make sure the dosage hadn’t changed since the last time I’d taken it (I don’t take it very often). That’s when I realized it had been reformulated. I felt so dizzy and sick that I went home from work, but I stopped by the pharmacy first to see what the deal was.

The pharmacist hooked me up with some pseudoephedrine, and told me that phenylephrine makes a lot of people sick like it made me (I think he said something like 25 - 30%). I HATE that crap and think they should have done a much better job of labeling.

[soufeyez812]

@Johnny_Bravo

Get a friend to buy you a pack every couple of months? Is that legal? It seems like one buffer 3.6 mg package would make things a whole lot easier for you.

Who cares If Its Legal Its cold Medicine for Goodnesss sake…

[aruvqan]

@Irishman

A friend of mine decided to only bother with a 12 hour period each day, so she buys the 12 hour packages and takes 1 a day. That way she can pretty much buy as she wants, as she never gets near the 9 gram limit. Of course she has congestion problems 12 hours every day. I need to be able to breath at night.

I would rather breath at night when I try to sleep so I would probably take it at 9 pm so it would be fully in effect when I wanted to sleep. During the day being upright tends to keep my sinuses from being solid, that and the neti pot.

I hate spring and summer, with all the damned tree and plant bukkakke going on.

[Irishman]

Thread rejuvenated.

@TBG

Not that a meth lab is pretty likely in my neighborhood either way, but there are more concerns than just where the flow drug traffic starts.

Interestingly, there have been raids on regular suburban neighborhood houses that have been converted into covert meth factories. So don’t think your neighborhood is immune - it’s not just trailer parks anymore.

@Johnny_Bravo

Get a friend to buy you a pack every couple of months? Is that legal? It seems like one buffer 3.6 mg package would make things a whole lot easier for you.

Well, that would be one solution, finding someone to buy a spare pack and then annoying them periodically.

@aruvqan

I would rather breath at night when I try to sleep so I would probably take it at 9 pm so it would be fully in effect when I wanted to sleep. During the day being upright tends to keep my sinuses from being solid, that and the neti pot.

I got on sudafed because I spend all day sneezing and sniffling and blowing my nose and whatnot. And feeling dreadful. Claritin D is doing pretty good.

I’ve managed to optimize my purchase routine. I buy 10 day packages rather than 15 day packages. Means I have to buy more frequently, but spreads out the incidents of getting the “won’t go through, have you bought some recently?” Then I hit a 5 day package on those incidents and it’s all good. It’s annoying, but manageable.

[Magiver]

3600 mg purchase per day = 30 days of one 12 hr per day (3600/120)
9000 mg purchase per month = 75 days worth of one 12 hr per day dose (9000/120)

If you’re taking this product around the clock that’s a great deal of Sudafed. the product label specifies 7 days.

From personal experience the more you take it the less it works. YMMV.

[Irishman]

12 hours a day would mean 12 hours a day I can’t breathe.

Sudafed is approved for constant use for allergies, that’s why it’s bundled with antihistamines like Claritin and Allegra. Sold in 24 hour dosing as well.

9 grams per month purchase = 37.5 days

However, the packaging combinations are not conducive. Buy 2 - 15 day packs, now want to buy your next pack before you run out, you can’t buy another 15 day pack. You can’t buy a 10 day pack. 9 gm per month - 7.2 gms for two 15 day packs means you only have 1.8 gms until the 30 day window from your first purchase. Assuming you started taking them the day you bought them, you will run out on day 30 and then be able to buy more on day 31. Or have to buy a 5 day pack.

Which typically means every third purchase you try to buy and are asked “It’s not letting you purchase this, did you buy some recently?”

Buying 10 day packs means you can make 3 purchases before you get the stink eye.

[Seanette]

@Irishman

Really? That would be great. I can’t get more than a 15 day supply on any day and I can’t buy more than 9 grams (thanks for pointing out the error) in a 30 day period. That means I cannot buy a 15 day supply on day 29 before I run out, but have to wait until after I run out. Or buy a 5 day supply, and come back to the store 3 days later.

Weird, I recently bought 2 48-tablet packs while at the pharmacy for other reasons. He told me I was still under the limit, so it wasn’t a problem to sell me that quantity.

Am I correct in thinking that tracking does not total up purchases for members of the same household? Thus, my husband and I (both with allergies/chronic sinus problems) would each be able to buy up to that limit and not have our purchases added together?

[Steve_MB]

@orderfire

Damn, it’s a good thing that posession or purchase of PSE isn’t a Constitutional right or anything.

Every fucking time I go to buy Sudafed, I get carded and have to sign for it because some relatively small percentage of the population who I have never seen or personally interacted with is doing something illegal and dangerous with it. Each time, I wonder how many (fill in the blank, anti-national firearm registry, background check, ammo purchase limit, Wayne LaPierre’s mom, whatever) people who are also law-abiding users of Sudafed have already comfortably adapted to it.

Psst! The pseudephedrine purchase tracking system is a test run for the gummint’s plans to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY! Pass it on!!