And if you think they’re uncontrolled in the US, then I don’t know what to say…
Doxylamine too? Both are legal OTC in the US, but I think hydroxyzine is prescription-only. Also because it’s used for anxiolytic purposes?
Well, sounds like they do put limits on it for thujone content. And other countries can be more liberal. And all this only since 2007.
And I can see that for you to sell those little bottles you’d have to find a wholesaler who handles that product, and given typical market conditions I imagine there aren’t many who do handle it. I know from personal experience as a patient that sometimes the pharmacist can’t fill a script because of supply problems up the chain, so to speak.
I was wondering about this. Is codeine mixed with generic Mucinex really that attractive to opioid addicts? I suppose it’s conceivable that they could cook it down to something stronger, if they bought a lot of bottles of the stuff. But then meth dealers or addicts can use Sudafed to make meth, but that risk is supposedly handled by the quantity limits imposed a few years back by federal statute.
Am I correct in assuming, then, that for you to stock and dispense a Sch. V drug, even without any prescription requirement, involves significantly more paperwork than a typical OTC drug, or for that matter, more than for ordinary, unscheduled prescription medications?
My pharmacist (NYC) can sell, and does, three hypodermic needle/syringes a day per person. His buyers are drug addicts, but come in and out quickly.
I live by a sketchy neighborhood. But, he is carrying out the spirit of the law as debated and passed (clean needles are better than banning all of them, even though the pharmacist knows most people buy them to resell them for profit). Perhaps chain or uptown pharmacists would not.
However, they, like you, are skirting the law, if not violating it, no? (Only if the law says you must stock or supply requested legal drugs. That I don’t know.)
In the same vein as salvia there’s an arms race between the UK government and the imaginations of various druggies, where some new synthetic drug will be discovered, or some herbal plant repurposed, which are perfectly legal as a means of getting high for a few years until the government realises what is happening and passes a law criminalising them. I imagine it’s the same in most locations around the world. Given the ad hoc nature of this legislation, it wouldn’t surprise me if many of these designer drugs were illegal in the UK but legal elsewhere, or vice versa.
I do not think it is entirely unavailable, but I have discovered (I had a thread about it last year) that isopropyl alcohol, freely available in any drugstore in the U.S., is very hard to get hold of in the U.K.
I ended up using vodka instead. It was much easier to get, and, for the small amount I wanted, cheaper
I’m not aware of isopropyl alcohol being restricted in the UK, it’s just not a best-seller in pharmacies so if it’s stocked at all it will be in small quantities and quite expensive. IPA is much cheaper from industrial suppliers, where it’s sold as a general purpose solvent. Ethanol is also a very good solvent, but not easy to obtain here in its pure form. Vodka is a good substitute!
There’s an interesting spectrum of international legailty with pseudoephedrine. In the UK it can be bought off the shelf in unlimited quantities in supermarkets, in the US it’s more restricted, and in Japan it’s completely illegal.
Kava is an herbal supplement from Polynesia with anti-anxiety properties. It has always been legal in the U.S. For several years it was banned in the E.U. and is still banned in Poland because of a concern over potential liver toxicity.
Snus is a form of tobacco originating in Scandinavia that is legal in the U.S., Canada, and Norway but illegal in the European Union (except Sweden).
Actually, this would be easy, our secondary supplier (McKesson) stocks the 4 oz bottles, and it is just a smaller bottle of something we regularly buy in 16 oz, so there are no drug shortages in it. And, if a pharmacist (well, an independent pharmacy willing to invest in the supplies) REALLY wanted to sell it, they could buy the supplies needed to make 4 oz bottles out of the normal 16 oz bottles and fulfill the labeling requirements.
Have you ever heard of Purple Drank? It is a recreational concoction that is popular in the hip hop community. Its normal ingredient is promethazine with codeine, but they could use guaifenesin with codeine just as easily. In fact, the first person I got arrested for a forged prescription was for promethazine with codeine to use in Purple Drank. If they could get the guaifenesin with codeine OTC, they would have just hired people to go into the store repeatably.
To sell a scheduled drug OTC requires WAY more paperwork and time then selling something OTC, and also way more then selling the same drug with a script. For one, the only one that can sell it is a registered pharmacist, so I would have to stop whatever I’m doing, go to the register, have you fill out the “Exempt Narcotic Log Book” check your ID, verify the information, and then ring you out… All for a product that you’re only paying maybe $6 for. Any profit we would get for the item would be taken up by paying me the 5 minutes it would take to ring you out.
Oh, and there isn’t really that much extra paperwork for CIII-CV rx’s vs, something not controlled. Check the order when it comes in to make sure we aren’t shorted, put invoices in the controlled box, fill RX’s, double count the product, stamp big red C on the hard copy (state requirement, not federal), sell RX (sometimes we might check ID, depends)… CII on the other hand, those require a bunch of paperwork.
The state law in Georgia for selling needles OTC is that “by the discretion of the pharmacist, they must be for a legitimate medical use”. Different pharmacists look that that requirement in different ways. Personally, I will sell them with any RX we’ve filled that would require a needle (B-12 injections, Testosterone, Insulin, etc), or if never filled with my company, show me a bottle, or give me a pharmacy phone number to call and verify. However, I know one store I worked at once that the regular pharmacist sold one pack of insulin syringes (of 10 needles) to anyone who asked. His rational was that the “legitimate medical use” was to prevent the spread of diseases. Since that store was in an area of the city that was really high in HIV infections, that did make sense.
There is no law (at least in my state or federally) that requires me to fill any prescription, or to stock any drug. I can refuse to fill any RX for any reason, and no one can make me do differently. (Well, the chain I work for could order a drug to put on my shelf, doesn’t mean I have to fill it, though if the chain ordered it on their own, I doubt there is a reason outside medical necessary that I would refuse an RX on it. Chain doesn’t order the really expensive, infrequent, or controlled drugs on its own, leaving that up to the store).
I’m in a different state (California), and I’m probably misremembering. As I recall, though, when my doctor prescribed codeine cough syrup once or twice, it came in a plain dark bottle that had no other labels than the typical prescription label printout. Now that I come to think of it, even my individual tubes of the Sch. II medication I use don’t bear any warnings that would make you think it is a strictly controlled product, other than that it’s a violation of Federal law to give or transfer the drug to someone else. But that’s on every prescription, not just controlled substances.
I’m not up on hip-hop culture so I haven’t heard of it. Codeine mixed with guafenesin–or anything with guaifenesin doesn’t sound like my idea of a rocking good time, though (hoooiiiiiiiiichhh-hoik!). As for hiring people to buy the stuff, wouldn’t the volume in codeine sales attract the notice of the DEA or state regulators?
Isopropyl alcohol is a staple in American pharmacies; I doubt you could find one that doesn’t stock it. Still, if I needed to keep alcohol on hand as a solvent or disinfectant, I’d just as soon use Everclear or Bacardi 151, if available. After all, it can be taken internally should that accidentally happen, and I always say, safety first!