So. I have a head cold. Life sucks, my nose won’t stop fucking dripping and it’s moving into my chest. When I lay down, I start coughing.
In hopes of aleviating some of my symptoms, I made my way to the local SprallMart Stuporcenter perchance to make purchase of cheap store brand “nyquil” liquid, and “dayquil” capsules. I arrive at the “Cold and Flu” section.
There is almost nothing there save for some childrens remedies.
“Alas!” I cry. Well, no. I didn’t cry “Alas!” I said, “Where the fuck are all the cold medicines?” A passing Sprallmart Drone fixed its dead eyes apon me and said, “All that stuff’s over there, at aisle 14, behind the counter.” " New law went into effect this month." And waves a limpid hand in the direction of said aisle.
Turns out that, in order to fight the ever growing problem of fucking meth heads fucking making meth in our fine state, one now must produce a picture I.D. and sign a register with name and address and quantity of psudeoephedrine containing medicine purchased. And we are now limited to the purchase of Two and only Two items with said psudeoephedrine.
God damn meth heads. I say let them make their meth. In fact, set up designated meth production areas away from civilizaton to keep their volitile nasty chemicals away from everyone. The bastards don’t tend to live long anyway. Eventualy the problem will solve itself.
As someone who firmly believes that nothing can’t be fixed with two bottles of NyQuil (or Wal-Quil, CVS-Quil, Porcu-Quill) I have to say I’m quite disturbed by this…
Nyquil? I suppose you could get some in Cairo, maybe Rome. Oh you don’t want to fly to Rome? Well, maybe I could help you. My friend has a couple of bottles he smuggled in from the US. Still sealed. But my, uh, friend he has a lot of financial problems, you know? But may he would be willing to part with one of those bottles …
(In truth I smuggle the stuff in on every trip. I have a nice collection.)
It especially sucks for me because my ad agency handles some advertising duties for a big pharmaceutical company and one of their brands that had been advertising very heavily through us cut its ad budget while the company deals with this issue.
So not only do I have to go make assurances that I’m not running a meth lab in my basement so I can unstuff my head, but I’ve got significantly less money to buy the remedies to begin with.
Mac Guffin I hope you get better soon. Kansas has similar procedures, at one point, it was the same. You had to go to the counter and ask the clerk for the product, provide ID, sign a register, and could only purchase so much within a given time. I’m guessing Mac Guffin is in Missouri or Oklahoma?
Tennessee has a law like this, AFAIK. My brother bought some Sudafed while I was down there in May, and he had to go through the whole signing the register thing and there’s a limit to the amount you can buy in a certain period of time.
I found out about this new law when I tried to buy sudafed and nyquil at Costco a couple of weeks ago. It’s working beautifully in preventing meth lab operators from getting their hands on the evil pseudoephedrine!
Took the cashier an extra *two minutes * to charge me seperately for the nyquil. Meth heads foiled again.
I hope you feel better soon. And you just might, if you pass the nyquil background check, that is.
Ya just don’t need that kind of shit when you’re sick. It’s bad enough trying to get the damn child-proof cap open when your brain’s cookin’ at 102.
Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys have a wonderful song, “Nyquil Blues”. I can’t find a listen-to link, but here’s a link to the lyrics (about half way down, posted by asshat. Don’t we have an asshat – search says not – how could we not have an asshat?).
between the pharmacy staff, the legitimate cold sufferers and the tweakers, the tweakers are probably the least inconvenienced by this. Walgreens/Save-On,/Rite-Aid, etc. hires as few people as possible to process and fill prescriptions behind the counter, and now on top of their regular duties is that of pseudophedrine gatekeepers.
A scabby, grimy waste of a human being with half his original teeth will come to the counter, interrupt pharmacy workflow to buy the maximum number of boxes of Sudafed. Then, after the amount of time required for one meth-head to return to the parking lot and another to emerge from the same car and enter the store, a second scabby, grimy waste of a human being will present himself at the counter. This will be repeated for the same number of times as a 1984 Datsun’s capacity for meth-head passengers. The Datsun will make as wide a circuit of the local Walgreens/Save-Ons,/Rite-Aids, etc as the evening’s funds will allow.
So does Iowa. The state drug czar was on the news a few nights ago, claiming that the law is helping.
He says they’ve only busted 6 meth labs since the law went into effect (in May, I think), compared to the usual 100+ a month before the law was passed. He went on to say that the manufacturers are probably traveling to Illinois or Nebraska to buy the makings now.
The suspicious part of me wondered if the law is the reason for fewer busts. Couldn’t it be that with nice weather, the labs have moved outdoors, where they’re harder to locate?
I don’t think it’s a law. It’s been a coupla months since I bought NyQuil, but when I got my economy sized box at Target, I just paid at the register.
-Lil
Grocery stores and convenience stores without pharmacies are no longer allowed to sell the products. I sort of remember reading that if you bought a pseudoephedrine product at the drug store, you had to provide identification and sign a record of purchase, but I can’t find a cite for this.
Looks like in Illinois, it went in front of the governor May 2004, and I’m sure he signed it, especially since all the stores do have this stuff behind the counter now.
So it looks like Illinois retailers who suspect the “alternating crackheads taking turns buying” thing is going on can refuse to sell in those cases.
Sorry I have been so slow to respond to this. I was asleep for 15 hours trying to break this stupid cold. I live in North Dakota. Our version of this law went into effect on june first.
I’ts also against the law to sell syringes for use other than their intened purpose (diabetic supply), but junkies buy at pharmacies all the time. We just sell them the needles in the faint hope they’ll be less likely to share.
I know a pharmacist who has a sure answer to the meth crisis: bring back pot. This is because he (and I as well) see today’s tweakers as being the same “class” (for lack of a better term) of people who, 20 years ago were harmlessly combing stems and seeds out of bales of Mexican pot, but now instead of living in houses where the carpet stank of spilled bong water, today their houses have to be demolished by Hazmat teams, because the very nails are toxic.
Don’t draft retail pharmacy into foot soldiers for your stupid war on drugs.