Conspiracy or "Just doing business?"
Dec. 31st, 2007 09:23 amI am reluctant to post this only because it comes from the Mises, one of those wacky far-right libertarian groups that's trying to figure out how to mutate the human species so that we'll all become Randites, but it's an interesting article and the basic fact is there to read in the documents to which the article links.
Jeffrey Tucker notes that the company that makes phenyephrine, the "PE" is "Sudafed PE," and the substitute for pseudoephedrine, Boehringer-Ingelheim, had an unremarkable history of lobbying in congress, with annual contributions to congressbeasts amounting to little more that $100,000 per year. In 2005 and 2006, the years when congress was mulling the banning of pseudoephedrine, Boehringer's contributions to various congressional races ballooned to an average $1.65 million dollars.
Tucker's a Von Mises contributor, so he sees a conspiracy. I think it's just good business from the point of view of Boehringer; they saw an opportunity to increase their market, and they paid for it. The sheer draconian weight of the law was bought and paid for, and now the shelves are stocked with a drug which probably doesn't even work for most people and which Omaha cannot use ("Patients with a history of epilepsy should not take this substance").
And it hasn't even done anything! The National Drug Threat Assement 2007 Methamphetamine Section shows that even though domestic meth production is now one-quarter what it was before the law went into effect (I won't argue that this isn't a good thing), emergency room visits my methamphetamine users, and overall estimates of the number of users in this country, continue to rise.
Just letting you know. I'm suffering with a stuffy head today, and I'm glad that I can still get some Sudafed somewhere.
Jeffrey Tucker notes that the company that makes phenyephrine, the "PE" is "Sudafed PE," and the substitute for pseudoephedrine, Boehringer-Ingelheim, had an unremarkable history of lobbying in congress, with annual contributions to congressbeasts amounting to little more that $100,000 per year. In 2005 and 2006, the years when congress was mulling the banning of pseudoephedrine, Boehringer's contributions to various congressional races ballooned to an average $1.65 million dollars.
Tucker's a Von Mises contributor, so he sees a conspiracy. I think it's just good business from the point of view of Boehringer; they saw an opportunity to increase their market, and they paid for it. The sheer draconian weight of the law was bought and paid for, and now the shelves are stocked with a drug which probably doesn't even work for most people and which Omaha cannot use ("Patients with a history of epilepsy should not take this substance").
And it hasn't even done anything! The National Drug Threat Assement 2007 Methamphetamine Section shows that even though domestic meth production is now one-quarter what it was before the law went into effect (I won't argue that this isn't a good thing), emergency room visits my methamphetamine users, and overall estimates of the number of users in this country, continue to rise.
Just letting you know. I'm suffering with a stuffy head today, and I'm glad that I can still get some Sudafed somewhere.
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