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As if the meth epidemic wasn't personally fucking me over enough...

As some of you may now, pseudoephedrine is apparently...well, contraband now, because of its ease of conversion into meth. Now, I don't know about you, but I LIKE pseudoephedrine, especially during cold season, and I especially like pseudoephedrine when it's contained in man's most effective OTC medicine, Nyquil (and its derivatives).

In response to threats of lost revenue--essentially, items containing pseudoephedrine would now have to be kept behind the counter, their sales logged, etc.--Vicks simply removed the decongestant from its most fantastic of elixirs, rendering it far less potent...I mean, christ, what's a cold medicine without a decongestant? (Vicks used to have a Nyquil FAQ page up, wherein the question "Wait, you're selling me an inferior product" asked in about seven trillion different ways gets answered with "There is no longer a decongestant in the product." Thanks for the exegesis, motherfuckers)

For a while, one could still find stray bottles without the FANTASTIC NEW FORMULA THAT DOES LESS, especially of various store brands. As of late, though, it's getting harder and harder to do.

Anybody else suffering?

http://web.archive.org/web/200604140210 ... _faq.shtml

Found it. Read it.

I'm not a pseudoephedrine user myself, but my wife needs Sudafed (or its generic equivalent) quite a lot, and I'm frequently the one who ends up buying it. The non-pseudoephedrine version, amusingly called Sudafed PE (the "PE" apparently meant to imply that it stands for the missing ingredient), doesn't work for her.

The situation isn't as bad as it apparently is with Nyquil, because it's still possible to get the real thing, even if it's a bit of a pain getting it from behind the counter. Unfortunately, the stores now tend to be poorly stocked. I'll hand the clerk the card for the 96-count box, and it'll turn out they only have the 24-count. Or they won't have the generic, and I'll end up with the significantly more expensive brand name product.

At the moment the hassle level varies from store to store. When one store went from quickly scanning my driver's license to requiring me to wait while they write every detail in their log book by hand, I tried a different store, which didn't even ask to see my license. That's now my regular store, although I presume that eventually all stores will conform to the same standards.

The rationale against pseudophedrine in NyQuil--as if someone's going to try to *extract* it--is apparently fairly scientifically dubious in the first place.

Xenu wrote:As some of you may now, pseudoephedrine is apparently...well, contraband now, because of its ease of conversion into meth. Now, I don't know about you, but I LIKE pseudoephedrine, especially during cold season, and I especially like pseudoephedrine when it's contained in man's most effective OTC medicine, Nyquil (and its derivatives).

Dave, honestly a Doctor might be of help. I have been prescibed this for a while for allergies. Believe me, if you liked the initial OTC version, the stronger prescription only version is awesome and available in generic form.

Innnteresting, although the OTC is usually plenty fierce.

FWIW, turns out the Walgreens nearest me had a huge stock of the old kind of its store brand, albeit behind the counter. I commiserated with the pharmicist for about 10 minutes while we went through the hilarious process he has to follow to make sure I'm not a tweaker. If anybody's interested, the Walgreens "Nite-Time" brand (at least the old variant) is basically half-price this week.