Fraggin' stupid intended side-effects!

[elfs]

We ran out of Children's Sudafed this evening and every store I stopped by to pick some up had either stopped carrying it or had locked it up and nobody on the floor had the key. Washington state has implemented a law making Sudafed a "behind the counter only" medicine, and I have to sign a form whenever I want to buy some. Y'know, I'd rather the people of my state be free to fry their own brains in whatever imaginative way they want than to have to sign a form that nobody will ever see just so my kid doesn't go to bed with a runny nose. Grr...

Any bets Sudafed and Tylenol stop making the children's stuff because it's just too damned hard to sell? And any bets what's left gets more expensive as stores tack on the significantly higher handling fees because it's no longer part of the distribution routine at their end of the supply chain?

Comments

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

Just to play devil's advocate here, how much of those 'social ravages' are caused by the actual effects of the drug use, and how much are caused by the illegal nature of the drugs, making them cash cows for the gangs that peddle it and the brokers up their supply chain, with all the turf wars over control of sales territory and profits that result? How many gangs do you see that are still making millions of dollars from smuggling liquor into speakeasies, and how many shootouts do you see over control of the distribution of that smuggled booze?

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

I'm speaking primarily about the direct effects of the drug use.

Anecdote: I've spoken with a number of my medical colleagues about this, all of whom have agreed that we just don't often see old or long-time meth users... primarily because so many of them fucking DIE -- of strokes, heart attacks, sepsis, and other directly attributable maladies.

(Addendum to earlier anecdote: forgot to mention that of the 80% or so of the teen/pre-teen offenders mentioned, most of them are injecting the drug, not just snorting or smoking it. There's a very high rate of resistant Staph and Strep skin infections among meth injectors, not to mention the HIV and hepatitis issues.)

I'm of the opinion that this drug has a remarkably great tendency to irretrievably ruin both physical and mental health, more commonly and more irretrievably than crack or heroin. The objections I've heard to restricting availability of the essential ingredient do not, in my opinion, seem terribly weighty.

Best wishes,
- Eddie