How much Sudafed did you buy?! The daily purchase limits are pretty high. Did you max out your monthly limit in your hometown before traveling?
Really, if we're this wound up about the situation, the answer is simple: just make Sudafed require a prescription, like a zillion other medications. The problem with Sudafed is extremely straightforward: it is a very trivial chemical reaction away from being methamphetamine.
You lost me at "all to prevent people from buying too many boxes of decongestant at one time". Obviously, nobody --- including the government --- cares how much "decongestant" you need. The problem is that pseudoephedrine is extraordinarily close to methamphetamine and the meth synthesis process is trivial. You can't buy sudafed without an ID for the same reason that you can't buy codeine off the shelf.
There are regulations that exist specifically to stop people from buying pseudoephedrine for someone else, anti-"smurfing" laws. Some places make you sign a government waiver that confirms you're only buying Sudafed for yourself, a family member, or someone in your household. There are limits on how much a single person and household can buy or have, as well.
It's not something you can use Task Rabbit for, and anyone that does pick it up for someone else because an app told them to is potentially opening themselves up to criminal liability.
This is why drug stores are required to alert law enforcement if they notice anyone trying to buy a large amount of Sudafed, or trying to buy a small amount very frequently. So now there are people whose jobs are to drive around to every drugstore in the town, buying small amounts of Sudafed at each one, so as not to raise any suspicion.
Real sudafed is OTC, you just need to ask for it at the counter. No prescription is required. They just don't have it on shelves, because they require you to show your ID when purchasing it. I'm assuming this is so they can track how much a person is buying to track people who are using it for illicit purposes.
Meth is really bad. Having to ask the pharmacist for Sudafed is not that big of a deal.
The prior situation where the cold medicine that's out in the middle of the store is ineffective was worse IMO because people reasonably assume that if they're selling it then it should work. If you tell them that they have to ask the pharmacist, they'll just do that and get something that works.
Why is sudafed still behind the counter when now it's not even necessary and it may improve the health of the community if they started making meth with it again?
It's not easy in my state. It goes like this: go to inside counter of an open pharmacy (can't use drive thru for it). Wait, for a long time (aren't all of your pharmacies massively overloaded with 30-60m lines? ours are). Ask for a 96-count sudafed (generic or regular) and hope they have it. If they don't, get 48. If they don't, get 24 (forget that I need 2 tabs every day as prescribed by my doctor -- yet can only buy 1 box/month no matter how many are in it so if I can't get 96 I can't get enough). Provide ID. Hope that the state verification system is up, because in my state it goes down ALL THE TIME and so frequently the process stops here only to be retried at some random future time/place. Do this each and every month as many times as it takes.
Forget that meth use has gone up in the face of all this insanity. It now flows in massively from Mexico. IOW, this isn't stopping meth use. Also forget that for years people like me were told that if we didn't like it we should use the drug that just now got officially tagged as having never worked (duh, we all knew this within one day of the first time sudafed went behind the counter).
Sudafed is one of the hardest to acquire substances out there, and the burden falls on those who really need it. I'm glad it's easy for you, but it's not for many many people.
You are trusted this way. Sudafed (and other pseudoephedrine meds) don't require prescriptions. You don't have to justify your purchase when you ask for them. The reason they're behind the counter is to prevent bulk purchase, since pseudoephedrine is basically a few household-chemical steps away from being methamphetamine. Despite that fact, you're still allowed to buy them for any or no reason, in quantities sufficient for any practical use.
The annoyance is that there's an ineffective medicine taking their place on the shelves in front of the counter, and no sign saying "don't bother, just ask the pharmacist for the real thing". But you know that now, so this isn't so much a problem for you.
The OP you're responding to is just saying, be careful with pseudoephedrine, independent of the law. And they're right; it's been linked to heart attacks and strokes.
You're not being told "no". You can just go buy some Sudafed right now if you want to. It's not like there's an application process. There is a rate limit; that's it.
In my experience the act of purchasing sudafed has simplified over the last few years and all I have to do anymore is show ID (as opposed to the pharmacist filling out a big log book and counter signing).
That aside, Flonase is my drug of choice for that stuff now and in a world without one or the other I know which I'll choose.
Psuedophedrine requires an ID to purchase and must be kept behind the counter in any state in the US. It's a federal requirement. Stores are also required to keep a record of purchases for 2 years.
If you were able to purchase Sudafed without having someone get it from the back or out of some locked cabinet, and also hand over your ID, it wasn't psuedophedrine.
I used to think this, but now I just go ask for the sudafed. It's usually quicker to buy, since you end up checking it out at the pharmacy rather than at the regular checkout. As long as I can reliably buy it --- and I've never had a problem --- I'm not sure why I'd be up in arms about the fact that sudafed is approximately as hard to buy as a pack of cigarettes.
There's the Sudafed on the shelves, made with phenylephrine, and the Sudafed behind the counter, made with pseudoephedrine. (Technically both OTC.)
The Sudafed behind the counter actually works (really really well), but due to what you've described, you need to present ID and affirm that you'll abide by certain federal laws. Oh, and there's a low hard limit on how much you can buy at a time, which is fine if it's just you in your household but not so fine if absurd levels of congestion run in the family and you all live together.
Where I'm coming from is just that the statistical base rate of pseudo->meth cooks is so low, I presume even if you account for "smurfing" (because nasal congestion is such a universal ailment) that dragnetting sudafed sales can't be productive, and pharmacists will quickly lose interest in scrutinizing customers buying in normal amounts. I'm prepared to be wrong, my suspicion is that most of the concern about disapproving looks from pharmacists is imagined.
I bought some sudafed a week ago and got offered more of it by the pharmacist (they sold me a package with twice as many pills as the one I brought up a card for). And I am a pretty scruffy looking dude; on my better days my fashion sensibility and grooming approaches "possibly homeless".
People say this on message boards all the time but I have literally never had a problem buying pseudoephedrine. I just walk up to the counter and ask for it. It's faster than buying a steak at the meat counter.
It's not as if any of us are unclear on why sudafed is controlled.
> you probably know that the "good" Sudafed is kept behind the counter, and you have to sign for it.
In my state, that's not how it works. You have to have a doctor's prescription to get it, which means you have to have a doctor -- and getting a doctor is incredibly difficult.
Really, if we're this wound up about the situation, the answer is simple: just make Sudafed require a prescription, like a zillion other medications. The problem with Sudafed is extremely straightforward: it is a very trivial chemical reaction away from being methamphetamine.
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