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Comment by dreamcompiler | Hacker News Reader

Misleading title (par for the course for what Scientific American has become).

Decongestants work.

Oral phenylephrine does not.

Pseudoephedrine works just fine but it was moved behind the counter long ago and now you have to ask the pharmacist for it, because besides the fact that it's a great decongestant it can also be used for making meth. TIWWCHNT (this is why we cannot have nice things).

The over-the-counter replacement for pseudoephedrine is phenylephrine and it's basically a placebo when ingested orally. (It works well in nose drops and nasal spray.)

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> TIWWCHNT

Because of asshole governments that wage beyond-insane wars on drugs?

Yes

There's much insanity and cruelty that's done in the name of fighting drug use.

I don't think restricting sale of medicine that is often used to make methamphetamine is one of them. Back when it was over the counter, how much of the profit from selling pseudoephedrine decongestants was really profit from selling a meth precursor?

Private profits from legal meth seems like a problem any society has to deal with.

Lol they did not buy the precursor, they stole it.

Had this same conversation with someone missing a number of teeth, they reported that chicken feed contains pseudoephedrine and is able to be collected by using a piece of wood as a capillary sieve.

I had a conversation in around 1992 with someone missing a number of teeth who claimed that AIDS probably came from mutated molecules of latex rubber in "those damned condoms".

https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/chickenfeed.htm...

"A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudoephedrine From N-Methylamphetamine" https://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume19/v19i3/Pse...

Or because of asshole manufacturers of illegal and dangerous drugs?

Porque no los dos?

Did it prevent meth usage? Meth production just moved to Mexico and became more potent as the production was industrialized. Overdoses increased, addiction rates increased.

Poor law with no thought process behind it. I think there is still push to make prescription only as well.

I have a friend in law enforcement, and he claims that their crackdown on meth labs where he worked (Indiana), even before the Sudafed restrictions, was not to reduce supply. Even in Indiana in the early aughts, most of the street drugs came from Mexico. Rather it was due to the hazard that the meth labs caused to the surrounding area (not to mention financial issues with remediating property that had been so used).

I always buy as much Pseudoephedrine as I can since I get regular head colds. It's always funny to ask for "as much as I can get".

Same. Any time I visit a pharmacy counter for any reason, I add "and the largest box of sudafed you can legally sell me", to make sure I always have a stockpile on hand.

Ok, we've put that in the title above. Thanks!

>"Pseudoephedrine works just fine but it was moved behind the counter long ago and now you have to ask the pharmacist for it... ..The over-the-counter replacement for pseudoephedrine is phenylephrine and it's basically a placebo"

But this is the entire issue, they knew this from the get-go and made billions based on fraud.

How many Nyquil/Dayquil and other decongestant commercials have you seen in your life time... Ive seen thousands. to the point their jingle and tagline are still easy to recall.

The issue here is fraud, most of the marketed products were oral.

So, here is a conspiracy: If they knew that it was useless, but sounded good on the label - then maybe they could get away with putting even less of the substance, if any, in the products to save costs?

I would assume the FDA would require batch testing at some interval?

You can see the FDA tests here:

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/science-and-research-drugs/drug-qu...

It's not something they do for very many drugs or very often.

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