Sudafed

[Eisa]

Wow, restricting Sudafed stops meth production? DAMN, why didn't anyone tell the people in my state that? We have like some ridiculously high level of meth use...which is even more surprising considering no people live here.

I got ID'ed for...Mucinex, I think? I can't remember. But it was stupid.

If you have to drag your sick ass out of bed and to the pharmacy, I say cough, sneeze, and breathe on everyone. Not really, but...sheesh.

[Andara Bledin]

It shouldn't be the governments job to go out of their way to make sure people don't harm themselves.

This. A million times this.

I'm very libertarian on this. If you are allowed to kill yourself with alcohol, then why the *censored* can't we kill ourselves with any other substance of our choice?

As for using phenylephrine. Well the good new is the FDA still says that it works. The bad new is other research is showing it works about as well as a placebo.

Phenylephrine does jack squat for me.

I can't stand all the stupid restrictions for pseudoephedrine. I'm wondering if maybe it's just too effective (and not expensive enough) and the whole war on drugs routine is just to either suppress availability or raise perceived value. [/conspiracy theory]

^-.-^

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

So let me get this straight, only the person who is sick can buy Sudafed for themselves? Even if they are too sick to go to the pharmacy themselves?

Yup! They want me to drag my ass out of bed, drive myself with sinus-induced breathing difficulties, bleary eyed, distracted by a migraine the size of Montana...

All so I can stand in line, sneezing, hacking, coughing and in general being a plague carrier and spread my sickness to everyone around me.

So instead of preventing someone from making meth (since the control laws haven't put a dent in production), you in fact create a second problem by having a plague carrying operator of several thousands of pounds of American Battlewagon (1994 Oldsmobile) while in a less than optimal state during winter conditions that are a challenge to those not as impaired as I am.

Yeah, that's real good gorram thinking.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

As for using phenylephrine. Well the good new is the FDA still says that it works. The bad new is other research is showing it works about as well as a placebo. Great if your mind does actually make you better. Not so good if you actually need meds.

Hence why I stated that I can pop that shit like TicTacs and not have it do anything. Sudafed PE. Placebo Effect.

[Stormraven]

I buy Advil Allergy & Sinus, but it's the same issue - though I was able to buy two packs recently. It's a royal pain in the you-know-what, it is.

[LadyBarbossa]

It's just as frustrating for the people who work in the pharmacy Except where I'm at there's no form, you present ID, I enter the info into our computer if it's not already there, and then the comp takes about 45 seconds to search a government database for previous purchases. Then you press accept and sign to show that you're aware the product you are purchasing contains that ingredient. THEN I can finally ring it up and charge you.

There are some people who approach the counter that I can just look at, say to myself "This fucker is gonna want Sudafed and they're going to get denied." Almost every time I'm right. Not only that but they do their damndest to try and convince us that they really are sick by sniffing and snorting about every ten seconds. And then pretend they don't know how their ID was possibly used to buy any or that they didn't know there was a limit. You can thank these jokers for making it rough on legitimately sick people. I just wish I could automatically ignore the fuckwit who comes up looking spaced out as hell with sores all over their face.

EDIT: As for the meth heads only harming themselves, that's not entirely true. I can understand why someone would want to at least try to stop them, since the labs frequently blow up and/or catch fire. Then it's not only the crackheads who'll get hurt, but anyone who happens to be in the way or live nearby.

[protege]

EDIT: As for the meth heads only harming themselves, that's not entirely true. I can understand why someone would want to at least try to stop them, since the labs frequently blow up and/or catch fire. Then it's not only the crackheads who'll get hurt, but anyone who happens to be in the way or live nearby.

Exactly. I've heard of meth labs in apartment buildings. Meaning, that anyone else in the building...is exposed to the fumes. If they're cooking it, you're breathing it in I don't know about you, but I really don't want to breathe in the cocktail of crap (antifreeze, for one) that goes into making meth!

BTW, meth has become a problem in rural SW PA. There are labs in the woods, and yes, they do blow up from time to time. Also, the owners of said labs aren't really people you want to come across...unless you want to get shot!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Could you get a note from the Doctor about it? Would that make a difference?

I'm guessing not. It's just how we have to fight this particular skirmish in the already hopelessly lost War on Drugs.

[Shalom]

I must be the odd man out here.

Phenylephrine works for me. Not well, but it does work to some extent. Before it was available OTC, I had to have a doctor prescribe it for me.

Pseudoephedrine doesn't, and never did; all it does is keep me up all night and give me palpitations and anxiety attacks... That said, I do recommend it to my patients over phenylephrine, unless there's a medical reason where it's not recommended (like in my own case).

(Note that PSE is dosed every six hours when in immediate-release form, whereas PE is dosed every four, and some studies show that 2.5 is more realistic. This means that even in those in whom it works, it wears off much faster.)

I miss phenylpropanolamine. That did work very well. Unfortunately people were taking massive doses of it in an attempt to lose weight and then having strokes, so those of us who used it responsibly wound up losing the only really good decongestant out there. It's now available only by veterinary prescription for dogs with asthma or something; humans (at least those without dogs) can't get it. I can't even order the powder and punch my own capsules (something I'm trained to do and good at) because 1) my wholesaler doesn't stock it, and 2) even if I order it from Paddock or some other vendor who does, while it's not (yet) a controlled substance it is on a watch list, and the FDA, and maybe also the DEA, is going to want to know what I'm doing with it, and I haven't got any dog prescriptions to show them.

[Daskinor]

This exact thing happened to me a year ago. Felt fine that morning, by 3pm at work I was running a 103 degree fever. Went home, by the next morning the rest of the house was sick.

Went to the doctor, he told me It was a nasty bug going around. Take some sudafed and take the next 3-5 days off work. Went to the pharmacy tried to buy two packs was told no.

So I called up the doctor, he call in a prescription for each person in my family. At that point they had to sell it to me.

[Lace Neil Singer]

How strange. I've never had any problems buying cold and flu medicine over the counter; I just bought another bottle of night medicine cuz I'm going on holiday and my current bottle won't last the week... no problems. Are all meth heads emigrating to America, then? Or do the people who make these stupid laws imagine that meth heads don't exist elsewhere?

Only rule we have here is not allowing people to buy more than two packets of paracetamol or ibruprofin at a time, and giving people twenty questions whenever they buy codine. I get migraines sometimes; when I do, I try to take codine before it hits me to ward it off. I've taken it since I was a teenager, I'm not about to abuse it and yet I still have to answer twenty questions whenever I buy it.

The paracetamol/ibruprofin rule is bullshit too. It's in place so that if someone buys several packets and tops themself, then their relatives can't sue the store if it can prove they only bought two. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? If someone wants to kill themselves using shitloads of paracetamol, then that's their choice. Tho it's a pretty stupid choice; agonising death by liver failure doesn't sound a very pleasant way to go to me.

[HYHYBT]

My understanding is that what often happens is that they *don't* intend to kill themselves: they intend to make a fake attempt, for whatever reason, and so choose something they think of as relatively harmless.

I don't understand the ban either, though. Over here you can buy the stuff in 500-count bottles if you want. (Whether there's a limit of two such bottles, I don't know; but then, would it matter?)

[Shalom]

I get migraines sometimes; when I do, I try to take codine before it hits me to ward it off. I've taken it since I was a teenager, I'm not about to abuse it and yet I still have to answer twenty questions whenever I buy it.

Here, you can't get codeine over the counter at all.

In theory, by Federal law, certain forms of codeine are legally available OTC, assuming your state doesn't restrict it. New York says that all controlled substances require a prescription, period. New Jersey allows dispensing of liquid codeine + guaifenesin without prescription, provided various arcane labeling requirements are met, and not more than 4 ounces at a time, and not more than 5 times in six months. In practise it's impossible to find anyone who has this in stock, or will admit to it at any rate. Certainly none of my wholesalers have it.

(There's better things for migraines than codeine in any case. Most require a prescription. Talk to your pharmacist.)

. . . it's a pretty stupid choice; agonising death by liver failure doesn't sound a very pleasant way to go to me.

Yup. See below.

My understanding is that what often happens is that they *don't* intend to kill themselves: they intend to make a fake attempt, for whatever reason, and so choose something they think of as relatively harmless.

They'd be wrong, though. If you truly want to off yourself, APAP (acetaminophen or paracetamol, depending on which side of the water you're on) overdose is not the way to do it, given that it takes four increasingly-unpleasant days to kill you. That's long enough to regret it, but too late to change your mind.

I don't understand the ban either, though. Over here you can buy the stuff in 500-count bottles if you want. (Whether there's a limit of two such bottles, I don't know; but then, would it matter?)

There's no restriction on APAP purchases in the USA. THe only such things are Sudafed, ephedrine (if it's still around, but I don't think so), codeine and other schedule-V controlled substances as mentioned above, and certain poisons that most pharmacies won't stock anyway. About the only other thing I write down in that book besides the pseudoephedrine is the tincture of iodine, and I don't think it even needs to be in there. I certainly don't stock strychnine or cyanide, at any rate.

So I called up the doctor, he call in a prescription for each person in my family. At that point they had to sell it to me.

But that's the whole point. They weren't selling it to you, they were dispensing it to you on prescription. There's a big legal distinction there; the restrictions are only on sales, not prescriptions. (Of course one reason is that the pharmacy needs to have a record of the name and address of the recipient on file before they fill the prescription.)

[HYHYBT]

They'd be wrong, though. If you truly want to off yourself, APAP (acetaminophen or paracetamol, depending on which side of the water you're on) overdose is not the way to do it, given that it takes four increasingly-unpleasant days to kill you. That's long enough to regret it, but too late to change your mind.

I know.... though reading your post made me think of *one* situation where, knowing all that, some people might possibly choose that way to go. Some people believe (I think Catholicism teaches this; if not, then at least some Catholics believe it) that you have to repent of and confess individual sins after committing them in order to be forgiven, and that if you don't, you go to Hell. Murder is sin, and suicide is self-murder. So under such a system the only way to kill yourself intentionally without going to Hell would be to live long enough afterwards to regret it... and to see a priest. And put that way, I could certainly understand choosing a few days of agony over an eternity of it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I come from England; as far as I know, the two packet rule is a shop rule, rather than a law.