I suffer from seasonal allergies. For a month or two at the beginning of Spring and another few weeks at the end of Fall I become a blubbering, snorting, sneezing, snotty watery-eyed fountain of phlegm unless I stay on a fairly regular course of decongestants and antihistamines.
I pretty much NEED to take them, or I’m absolutely miserable. I take the medications exactly as directed, I only take them when I needed. These are completely legal, perfectly legitimate allergy medications, but they all happen to contain pseudoephedrine. This makes me a criminal.
Let me explain…
I’m taking a vacation in a week or so and I thought I would purchase an extra box of allergy medication just so that I wouldn’t have to stop having fun and hunt down a drugstore during my short holiday away.
However, the medication that works best for me contains pseudoephedrine, which is a nasal decongestant that can apparently be refined or cooked or magically turned into methamphetamines or “meth” as it is commonly called on all the police websites. And because a few people are using cold medicines to make illegal drugs, our politicians have nearly fallen over themselves trying to pass laws which make buying cold medicine with pseuoephedrine a difficult process.
As a result, normal allergy sufferers can no longer just grab a box of cold medicine off the shelf and buy it. Most stores in New Jersey and New York appear to have similar procedures, but my special hell was brought to me courtesy a visit to Wal-Mart:
1. Pick up a little plastic place card for the item you want from the shelves where the medicine used to be. So, here I am, a thirtysomething adult, and I can’t buy a box of cold medicine. Yet I’ve seen eleven year old kids grab the “Multi Variety Fun Pack” of condoms off the wall and purchase them without anyone batting an eyelid.
2. Take this little place card to the pharmacy window. There I stand in line with all the people who need real prescription medication. If you’ve ever stood in these lines, you know that half the people in them are pushing 100 and you know the gal operating the register only hit puberty a year ago.
3. When I’m asked, I need to show my photo ID. Okay, this isn’t a big deal for me. I have to show my photo ID to buy beer or cigarettes. But this next step is what scares the willies out of me.
4. The clerk then REGISTERS my name and my cold medicine purchase in a FEDERAL NATIONWIDE database. What? My nose is running, so I’d better be monitored by FBI. It’s at this point in my Wal-Mart trip that things take a dangerous turn.
5. The clerk informs me I can only buy one box of cold medicine, not two, as I had intended.
“Why?” I ask.
“The machine says so,” she replies.
“Why does the machine say so?” I ask.
“I don’t know. It’s a law, I think.”
“What law? What’s the rule?” I demand.
“Sorry. It doesn’t say. The machine just tells me you can’t do it,” she says.
“If the machine told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”
“Maybe. I have to use the machine to get paid…”
6. I stomp out of Wal-Mart without any cold medicine. I make sure to sneeze on several unmanned cash registers just for good measure.
Now I’m fairly angry with two large organizations. I’m ticked at Wal-Mart for employing someone in the pharmacy department who is clearly no more intelligent than a trout. And I’m ticket the US Federal Government for passing a law that treats me like a criminal.
I have done some searching and it appears that the “law” in most states limits the purchase of cold medicine with pseudoephedrine to a certain amount, which loosely translates into one box per day, no more than 30 days worth in a given month.
This is something that is now frustrating a lot of people, seeing how many experts are noticing that this one of the worst allergy seasons in years for the United States.
This law only manages to penalize the legal users of cold medicine.
If anything, I’m now going to take more sick days (yes, seasonal allergies can be downright debilitating) and cost my employer more money, which will raise the cost of my company’s product for all consumers and will, more than likely, cause the eventual collapse of our entire world economy!
Okay, maybe not. But you get the idea.
Let’s review this law and compare it to reality:
1. I have to register in a national database to buy cold medicine which keeps snot inside my nose, and I’m limited to three boxes a month. This is very important to the security of the United States because I’m sure Osama Bin Laden’s next terror plot involves a particularly high pollen count and 30,000 cases of Aleve Sinus and Headache.
2. I can buy all the gasoline and fertilizer I want to make a truck bomb. Curiously, I’m not registered in any sort of “Unleaded Fuel” database every time I purchase a tank of gas. Timothy McVeigh used a Ryder truck, yet I can still rent one of those as often as I want without being entered into a national Truck Rental database.
3. I can buy all the bleach and ammonia I want to make chlorine gas. Heck, I can even buy all those things from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart even puts the two products in the same “cleaning supplies” aisle, so it’s clear that Wal-Mart supports terrorism.
4. I can buy kitchen knives, chainsaws, deep fryers, bowling balls, lead pipes, cigarrettes and cases of booze (all at Wal-Mart) with an intent to kill, maim or at least leave a nasty scar. All those things are very, very dangerous if used improperly, yet I don’t have to register in a national database for any of them.
Essentially, I can buy all the supplies needed to kill 100 people, but I can’t buy something to unstuff the snot in my nose.
Getting the idea here?
EVERYTHING can be abused and misused. It’s an absurd idea to limit the purchase of some things that can be abused without limiting the purchase of ALL things. And by limiting the purchase of things that are mostly harmless (like certain nasal decongestants) then you are really punishing the millions of people who use the drugs as intended just because of the sins of a few.
The reality is that New Jersey’s own website admits that they’ve only found seven “meth labs” in five years (scroll down). That’s hardly an epidemic.
Do other states have a problem? Yes. Many Midwest states have a problem because they have a lot of open space and it’s more difficult to detect the strong urine odors that emanate from a meth lab. You need both pseudoephedrine and open spaces to make a meth lab unnoticeable, so why not outlaw or severally restrict wide open spaces and houses on large plots of land?
The entire idea of a law to limit cold medicine is borderline insane. Do the politicians who passed this law really think it’s going to cut down on meth labs? I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I would guess the people who run meth labs out of their basement are about as bothered by this cold medicine law as convicted murderers might be annoyed at a jay walking violation.
We have thousands of laws against illegal drug sale or distribution and yet, curiously, we still have a drug problem here in the United States. What sort of moron (ahem, sorry, “policy maker”) thinks to himself: “Hey, let’s pass another drug law! Those other 14,000 laws didn’t stop the problem, but this next one will!”
In fact, if you read some of the methamphetamine news stories, you’ll see that this law is actually hurting US drugstore sales because now the drug makers are getting their pseudoephedrine from other countries instead of buying them at the local drugstore.
So, what am I going to do? Two things…
First, I generally limit my Wal-Mart shopping to times when I need to buy cheap inferior products produced by the equivalent of American slave labor. But when I do visit Wal-Mart I’m going to purposely buy the cheapest thing I possibly can on each visit and I’m going to use my credit card to buy it. Why? Because when I use a credit card (like Visa or Mastercard) Wal-Mart pays a fee to Visa. I like that. And there is a minimum fee, so if i hunt around enough I’m sure I’ll find something that cost less than the fee Wal-Mart pays, thus causing them to lose money. It’s not much, but it makes me feel good.
Second, I’m going to follow this federal law on pseudophedrine to the letter. At the start of every month I’m going to buy one box of alergy medicine for each day until I reach my monthly limit, whether I need it or not. I’m going to stockpile my alergy medication throughout the year so that I always have plenty on hand. And I’ll probably have my wife and friends do the same, just to be sure.
If a law-abiding citizen can do this, why can’t the meth makers?
Why did none of the hundreds of United States politicians ever look beyond the headlines and see how useless this law really is? Maybe because they’re United States politicians who are only slightly more intelligent than the aforementioned trout and, if they weren’t in office, would probably be associate managers at the local Wal-Mart.
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go blow my nose and mail the tissue to my congressman.
12 Responses to “Pseudoephedrine Stupidity – Confessions of a Drug Addict”
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thordora says:
I love Canada.
My brother has TERRIBLE allergies, so I feel for you. I remember when Allegra wasn’t available OTC in the states-I couldn’t believe it.
And the day your government addresses the actual disease of addiction, their heads will remain firmly in their asses.
May 11th, 2006 at 5:27 am -
Tom says:
What gets me is that you can get very potent and corrosive acids at the hardware store without having to go through any rigamarole. That stuff *should* be restricted, as contact of muriatic acid with human tissue through the agency of a deranged maniac would likely mean severe disfigurement and possibly death for the owner of said tissue.
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b davis says:
Yeah, I’m willing to bet that there are more allergy/sinus sufferers than there are meth users and I’m also willing to bet that that the allergy/sinus suffers are more affluent voters than meth users so if you suffer like I do every spring and autumn season, vote your congress man out of office for stupidity!!
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emily says:
hi, I must say that i do sympathize with you, it is ridiculous what the FDA has done with pseudoephedrine, while we do not regulate alcohol, or cigarettes, or condoms the way we do with pseudo. Hell, the morning after pill just went over the counter. But realize that while you vent out your frustration on the employees of this Walmart or whereever you were, the law was enacted federallly , any employee who deviates from this will be considered violating federal law and can be fined, imprisoned and/or terminated.
emily
r.ph -
Spilling Coffee with Humorist Tom Coffee - » SpillingCoffee.com - Serving Dissatisfaction to Millions says:
[...] I had no idea you could do such a thing. This person probably ended up at my tirade against the government for treating pseudophedrine in cold medicine like it was sticks of dynamite packaged with matches. Amazingly, this search comes up quite a lot in my stats. [...]
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Kathleen says:
Not much has been said in a while here I see, but I gotta vent somewhere. It’s 5am in the morning in NY, and I’m up suffering from horrible cruel sinus pressure. I DON’T have a damn runny or stuffy nose. (pharmacists and doctors have tried to placate me with things for a stuffy nose too many times – they don’t get it.) I don’t have a cold. My junk just swells up now and again and it’s unbearable. My eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of my head and I can’t even think straight.
I have 4 pills left and I got nervous. Nervous about running out of an OTC drug that is the only thing that works for something that incapacitates me..
I too go through all the hassles I read from the posts above. In the good old days cheap generic yellow sinus/allergy pesudo pills used to be all over the place. I’d get 2 packs of them at a time sometimes. I can fondly remember having them stuck haphazardly in my drawers, makeup bags – extras in the car so I didn’t get debilitated while traveling, etc. If I had only known what was going to go down, I’d have stockpiled the stuff. I’ve since searched every nook of my house in times of desperation and taken them all except one pair I found in a junk box in the kitchen tonight. It was pathetic how happy I was to find them. I feel better already.
Now, we all have to stand on a Calcutta bread line situation to get some relief. It seems to me that the stuff I can get still doesn’t work as effectively as what I had either.
One big bitch I haven’t seen enough complaining about is the GOUGING. I think the drug companies have used this meth lab crap as an excuse to hike the prices, and it’s got me pissed. Another example of the market creating a scarcity and demand to to screw the masses and profit.
I used to pull a box of 48 pills for about $4-5 off the shelf and go. Now, recently during an attack, I’ve been to Rite-Aid, and was forced stand on line sick as hell just to buy a box of Drixoral with 24 pills in it for $11. Half the stuff for twice the price. They didn’t have regular Sudafed generics, because, mysteriously where I am, all the generics have disappeared and been replaced by only top brand names. At that point I would have handed them one of my kidneys if they asked to stop the pain. And they know it.
So not only am I being harassed, logged in like some pill freak into a database, and waiting for some pubescent ‘manager’ to eye me up and see of I look like a crank zombie – but I’m getting ripped off to boot. This whole thing is less about the war on drugs than Big Pharmy’s greed.
The government’s made it abundantly clear that they don’t give much of a shit about the people on a multitude of levels, so the motivation to remove cold meds isn’t intended for our well-being. It’s intended to line the pockets of the makers of big drugs who have their own ring in this damn circus, as well as for Big Brother to keep a finger on yet something else that used to be a basic freedom.
Now I think I can sleep. Good luck to all of you.
-Suffering in Sinus -
My Drug of Choice: Pseudoephedrine - Spilling Coffee with Humorist Tom Coffee says:
[...] In case you haven’t been living on planet Earth very long, the US Federal Government decided last September to put Federal Government decided to put the nasal clearing wonder-drug of Pseudoephedrine in the same illegal and dangerous classification as Drano-laced crystal meth and Chinese made toys. They did this because a few bad eggs were buying truckloads of cold medicine, working voodoo magic, and ending up with a bathtub of crystal meth made from the Pseudoephedrine contained in these wonder drugs. [...]
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Kristi says:
I just went to Wal-Mart to buy a 20 pack of the 12 hour generic Pseudoephedrine. This pack, if taken according to the package will last for 10 days. I only take them at night becuase if I don’t I can’t breath through my nose. If this happens, my mouth dries out to the sore of getting sores in it.
My 6 year old son has horrible allergies and takes zyrtec liquid but that still doesnt stop the stuffed up nose. He now needs the Pseudoephedrine children’s grape liquid at night to help him breathe.
I go up to the counter to at try to buy one packet of each. The lady rudely asks for my ID which I gave her. She then tells me that I MAY not be able to buy both. I asked how she would figure out what I could buy and she told me that she would have to run it through the machine and see. I asked her how old you needed to be to buy the product to which she replied 18. I asked her if she meant to tell me that I may not be able to purchase the medicine for myself AND for my child and that I would need to choose who gets the medication. She said yes. In just a minute, the purchase went through and she grumpliy said that she guessed that “it” was going to allow me to buy both today.
I came home and looked up the gram limit per day and per month. I was just under the daily limt and I can make this purchase 3 times in one month which is enough for me and my son since we do not take it around the clock.
But what if I had several children who all needed it around the clock??? I would not be able to buy enough for everyone. I would need to find other friends or relatives to purchase this simple cold medication for my family.
This is insane!!!!
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Jennifer says:
I’m with you all. It is ridiculous. I stopped taking actifed when they started giving us dirty looks for buying it. I figure if I die because my infected sinuses cause heart failure, then maybe my loved ones can wage a wrongful death suit against the federal government.
But, my mom still takes it. We are travelling and I cannot find any place that sells it, ID or not. It’s very frustrating.
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Melissa Newkirk says:
I have to say, Tom, you made me laugh for the first time in the last couple of hours. I just had my Walmart experience. I felt totally humiliated when asking for my SECOND box EVER!! I just finally gave in and admitted that I have allergies and found this generic Sudafed last month for the first time and started taking it at night. Wow..no more sleep apnea, no snoring, feeling rested in the morning…hallelujah! I go to buy my second box…ever…and POW! Guess what, I am over the limit..no explanations..no examples..same as you.
I call my mom, furious, she and I do research and find it is 9 gm per month, which, as you say, is 3 boxes. I only bought 1 box with 20 tablets in the last month!! What is going on?!! So…with much ado, I wrote the fda, who is probably going to wire tap me and keep an eye on my computer at the law firm where I work..oh yeah, and my cell phone…all because I just want my second box of generic sudafed so I can sleep and breathe.
I was told I can get a prescription from my doctor, but seeing I don’t have any health problems other than allergies, I don’t really want to start paying $80 for a visit to explain to the doctor that I have allergies, him write me a prescription, and I go back and get it filled like I could have done in the first place.
Funniest thing is, if they checked my math scores, they would know I could never: 1) get into a chemistry class and 2) understand what I heard there to make anything, much less meth!!\
Thanks for letting me vent. I feel better.
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Suffering Another Sinus Infection says:
There have only been three drugs in my lifetime of allergies and sinus infections that had positive impacts for me, seldane, phenylpropanolamine, and pseudoephedrine of at least 120mg. Uncle Sam has denied me of all of these. It is no surprise that I require more steroids and surgeries each time one is removed from the marketplace. I can gulp down 800mg of the guiafenesen that now fills the aisles, and all I get is a headache, not even a good placebo effect. Thank you Uncle Sam. It is always nice to live in a free country where I can go after my happiness, as long as happiness involves going through surgeries I can’t afford anymore because I can’t work because I can’t breathe or sleep.
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Allen says:
Actually, the situation is even worse than you report. The actual federal law is stupid, but reasonable — it restricts you to 3.6 grams/day, which is exactly what the manufacturer recommends (60mg every 4 hours). A 24-dose box is a 4-day supply. In California, Longs (now CVS) restricts you to three boxes (a 12-day supply) per month — 3/8 of the amount the the law proscribes). Walmart has the same stupid rules. In effect, the drug stores have rewritten the law to by considerably more restrictive than it actually is.