Laissez-faire capitalism really does super-efficiently allocate resources (like meth precursors) to markets that want them (like meth labs). We’ve elected people who said “government is the problem” and championed “deregulation” for nigh on thirty years now, with the mantra that “laissez-faire solves all problems everywhere”…
I just want my ephedra tea back, dammit. I notice it was far easier to ban a herbal tisane with a 5000 year old track record than to ban an extract made by giant pharmaceutical companies…
[quote=“Medievalist, post:21, topic:10844, full:true”]
Laissez-faire capitalism really does super-efficiently allocate resources (like meth precursors) to markets that want them (like meth labs). [/quote]
Or, like people with colds, who would like some relief without paying extra to support a failed policy of preventing people from getting high on politically incorrect drugs.
I don’t think Obama has been saying this. Or the Democrats. And when the Republicans say it, while supporting big government like the war on drugs and bank bailouts and endless war, you know they’e full of it. So, really, we haven’t been electing people who want less government, no matter what they promise on the campaign trail.
So maybe the solution is for the government to stop telling people what they can and can’t put into their own bodies? I mean, my body, my choice, right?
Pseudoephedrine nor phenylephrine do much for me (the ephedrine is better, but it still doesn’t elicit any effect for more than a few minutes.) I will sometimes take it in a combination pill which helps my cold symptoms, but my wife, like I suspect most of the population, can take Sudafed and feel great.
Ironically I’m overly sensitive to caffeine because I’ve been drinking it since I was like 5.
It doesn’t hurt that pseudoephedrine is the only effective non-averse decongestant on the market. Phenylephrine, it’s replacement on the OTC shelves, is as effective as a glass of air. The others are all antihistamines, which is great, except when you have a cold, or nonallergic rhinitis, or are otherwise sensitive to them.
Too bad that you can make meth out of them. Is locking up an effective treatment for a really problematic symptom a good solution? You can make nerve gas out of bleach and ammonia, but we don’t lock those up.
If I can’t get the stuff I need to clear my nose, maybe I’ll just have to start taking meth to get over it.
Works for me. You run somebody over, you get prosecuted for running somebody over. Good luck convincing anyone else; I predict much clutching of pearls at the very idea.
I am wondering how come BoingBoing.net has started doing all those postings about Meth and TV shows about it, and things. Are you people in some way fans of such poison, or intending to popularize or glamorize it?
I like Boing Boing but I have no interest in Meth or those who make zombies out of people with the stuff. I am really getting turned off by Boing Boing’s new infatuation with all things Meth, and wonder who among it’s staff are addicts, to result in such promotion and enthusiasm.
Wasn’t there an article on BB recently where someone’s research showed that ~10% of meth and crack users are actually addicted, in the physical sense of the term? Eg, drug addiction is much more a symptom of social problems than a cause of them. If we could muster enough of our fellow countrymen who could stand to get off of their puritan high horses now and then, we could move to a harm-reduction strategy that still lets people get effective medicine when they need it, and eliminates most of the crime associated with drugs.
Making Pseudoephedrine available with a prescription is a bad idea. Folks without insurance will go from paying $6 for a box of Sudaphed to paying $250 for the marked up version. The alternative Phenylephrine based medicines which most often replace Pseudoephedrine do not work for many, and are more risky to use, side effects-wise. PE is another case of a manufacturer pushing through a drug with iffy efficacy and risk testing results.
The current regulation of making it behind the counter, recording a licence number, and signing for it to buy it, and being tracked by law enforcement is every bit as effective as gating it using a prescription. The same folks who can get it illegally bypassing the behind the counter measures can certainly bypass the prescription route.
This is one time when Big Pharma is doing folks a favor. This latest chapter of the drug war is just more nonsense.
Yes, I use an Afrin clone for topical nasal decongesting. But it has no systemic effect, and as someone whose allergies and colds routinely cause disruptive eye, nose, and ear symptoms as well, just hitting my sinuses isn’t good enough. It’s not good enough for the sinuses for extended periods, either.
My wonderful Senator Dianne Feinstein has been making Sudafed harder and harder to get for years; as somebody who has allergies that lead to congestion, it’s been really annoying. Phenylephrine does a half-baked job; it’s another one of those wonderful ways that the War On Drugs is making everybody’s life better (not.)
I happened to catch an NPR radio show that interviewed the author of the MoJo article. Really frustrating.
Yes, making it prescription-only would cut back on the shake&bake meth labs that let addicts cook their own ice in a couple of soda bottles, complete with a bunch of toxic contaminants that most of them don’t bother cleaning up from the stuff they’re taking, much less disposing of in an ecologically responsible manner (not as bad as Krokodil, but still bad.) They’d have to go back to buying it from biker gangs who can get a purer, safer product from Big Pharma.
(By the way, the author said that Sudafed in gelcaps doesn’t work for making shake&bake meth; he was handwaving all the chemistry but I assume the explanation is that there’s something in the packaging that kills the reactions or whatever. I’d have no problem with being forced to buy gelcaps instead of tablets.)
Somebody suggested that we should just legalize some stimulant to keep the users happy with something safe, and suggested modafinil. I’ve tried it (for sleep issues), and it’s not a fun drug. It’s not nasty, but in small doses it’s like a less stimulating caffeine (you’re awake, but not bouncy, and like caffeine it’s no substitute for real sleep), and in larger doses it’s jittery but still not fun. Khat or benzedrine would probably be better choices, or maybe Ritalin (haven’t tried either, especially since the Feds banned khat as “one of those drugs foreigners take” they way they originally did with marijuana.)
I’d have more confidence in the objectivity of Engle’s selection of crime rate statistics if his one paragraph considering impacts on people with nasal congestion weren’t dismissive and misleading: “…more than 100 cold and allergy drugs made without pseudoephedrine…”? I think he means more than 100 products containing the same shitty phenylephrine, a drug that might or might not even work, much less work as well as pseudoephedrine. And nowhere does he consider the social effects of treating everyone with a cold like a potential criminal.
Oxymetazoline causes significant rebound congestion for me with just one day’s use. Long term use of pseudoephedrine can also cause rebound congestion, but not in one day, usually my cold will have run its course by the time rebound congestion starts to be a problem, at which point I taper off and use a neti pot to help with the rebound inflammation and suffer a couple of days until my nose gets over the abuse (miserable, but less miserable than a cold without any effective decongestant). And yeah, phenylephrine doesn’t do anything for me either.
I feel for you. I can’t stand that waking up in the middle of the night from a dream about thirst to find you’re mouth’s bone-dry and your tongue’s stuck to the roof. Nasty. I am going to spend today mainly wrapped in a quilt, keeping mucous at bay with a Sudafed spray bottle of oxymetazoline. It’s beautiful outside still too. T-shirt weather in northern england & it’s nearly october…
The pro-prescription forces should appeal to the Mexican drug cartels for funding assistance, since they’ll be the big winners. Small shake-and-bake cooks may make up the vast majority of meth producers, but they still represent a tiny fraction of meth production.
Looks like Drano is used to make meth, too. Should we make that prescription only, as well? Get a note from a plumber before you can get it! And don’t they use gasoline in the manufacture of cocaine? Better get a note from your mechanic saying you really need more gas before you fill up.
