Because the laws restricting pseudo-ephedrine have been so successful....

[RomanEmpire]

Imagine a world without drugs.........wow. What a wonderful thing.

[PepRock01]

Imagine a world without drugs.........wow. What a wonderful thing.

 

Considering mankind has been using drugs in their more natural unprocessed forms for thousands of years that is about as useful as imagining a world without the sun.

[Beechwoodfan]

Not that big of a deal IMO. Many pharmacies already keep any dextromethorohan products behind the counter anyways because it is prone to being stolen as at high doses it can cause euphoria and some hallucinations. Teenagers were abusing this stuff long before the sudafed law was passed but it's just being looked at more harshly now.

 

The only thing that is different is just the ID and quantity limits but it's not like they aren't going to give what you need. You just won't be able to buy 5 boxes of the stuff at a time.

 

And to just put this in perspective, I am a pharmacist so I'll be the one you'll be dealing with on a regular basis for the stuff .

 

I agree with you. I buy cold medicine for my family maybe once a year. No big deal. However, I was wondering, as a pharmacist, have you personally seen a lot of abuse of cough medicine? I know with Sudafed, it was getting stolen, or over purchased like crazy in some stores for meth. I wasn't aware that cough medicine was being abused, especially because codeine was taken out years ago, and most have taken out alcohol in the OTC brands.

[BaseballIsLife]

I agree with you. I buy cold medicine for my family maybe once a year. No big deal. However, I was wondering, as a pharmacist, have you personally seen a lot of abuse of cough medicine? I know with Sudafed, it was getting stolen, or over purchased like crazy in some stores for meth. I wasn't aware that cough medicine was being abused, especially because codeine was taken out years ago, and most have taken out alcohol in the OTC brands.

 

In my own store we keep it he died the counter but as I'm a fairly new pharmacist I've never seen it happen because of that. However the reason our stores policy is to keep it behind the counter is because shelves of it were getting stolen about 5 years ago. Numerous other stores had similar issues so they decided to make this are move but not all did. The independent pharmacies don't tend to have this problem while your bug supermarket ones that do business besides pharmacy have this problem come up more often.

 

And you are right about the alcohol in OTC products. It's hard to find them in any product anymore because people were abusing that.

 

People might feel like this type of new law will be inconvenient for them but let me remind you it is also inconvenient for us too. However, these types of abuse trends are looked at pretty closely before new laws are enacted. Dextromethorphan products are cheap and readily available to the public which makes it very appealing to the younger crowd and those strapped for cash. Cough medicine abuse tends to happen to the younger crowd as you don't see too much abuse of it beyond someone's early 20's. They are trying to just nip it in the bud now while they can but still allow access to it when someone needs it.

[mcpapa]

And you are right about the alcohol in OTC products. It's hard to find them in any product anymore because people were abusing that.

 

First job I had out of school was at a halfway house. Seemed that a high percentage of the alcoholics would develop colds, for which NyQuil was their preferred medication.