Senate advances bill to restrict cold medicines

[Celebration]

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2005-07-28T180635Z_01_N28140868_RTRIDST_0_CONGRESS-METHAMPHETAMINE.XML

Any of you take Actifed? You will have to get it behind the counter and be limited in amount. It's already the case in my state--have to actually wait in the pharmacy line.

[DanCa]

1. Here comes Faith Based Medicine

Pray that you dont get sick.

[Roon]

2. I am watching my brother die of meth abuse

Anything they can do to stop this insidious drug will help. This drug has really hit the gay community hard..it's hit everyone hard.

[Celebration]

3. Oh that is sad

I am so sorry.

Waiting in line is a small price to pay if it can help (not sure that it will but we can hope).

[Roon]

4. We are so short on solutions

Anything to deter will help.

[benEzra]

7. It is my understanding that

most U.S. meth comes from big superlabs that don't even need pseudoephedrine to make it (only one of the meth "recipes" requires pseudoephedrine; there are others). It's only the small-time producers who buy Sudafed at Wal-Mart to make it. So IMHO reducing sudafed availability to law-abiding patients who really need it (like my wife and I, she for allergies and me for sinus headaches) will ultimately do nothing to reduce meth availability, unfortunately. But it does allow politicians to appear to be "doing something," which I suppose is the point.

[texastoast]

5. Oh that is rich

If they are going to do that for pseudoephedrine, why not for dextromethorphan, with a chemical structure nicknamed "morphine in boxcars"? Dex is abused by tons of teenagers and has caused many, many deaths nationwide.

And, it is found in over 100 cold medications.

[HuckleB]

6. Well, in Oregon, people will now have to get prescriptions.

So the uninsured who do well with pseudoephedrine for colds and sinus/allergy stuff are going to be shelling out a lot more dough and time to treat themselves in this state.

I don't have a problem with having to go to the pharmacy and sign for it, though I doubt that either solution will help. Other supplies will be forthcoming, and if they're not, the price might go up, increasing crime and the severity of the epidemic, as has been noted every other time we've tried some form of prohibition or another for drugs of abuse.