This is a satirical paper. Because pseudoephedrine (i.e. the good decongestant) is very difficult to obtain due to restrictions, but "N-methylamphetamine can be procured at almost any time on short notice", the paper describes how to synthesize pseudoephedrine from meth with a procedure that looks valid.
[1] https://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume19/v19i3/Pse...
Refused sale of Sudafed because my license was expired. Apparently I accidentally tossed my new license and kept the old one. Doh! However they happily refilled my schedule III meds with the expired license.
As I said WAT.
The FDA rule on this [1] doesn't appear to be quite that strict: it says the ID can be "a photo identification card issued by the State or the Federal Government or a document that is considered acceptable by the seller". It doesn't explicitly say it has to be from the same state as the one in which you are buying the medication, and it leaves the seller some latitude in what to accept.
Possibly some states have more restrictive rules. Or particular sellers might be more leery about what they are willing to accept.
[1] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/legal-requi...
Of course all of this is stupid in a world where the real junkies use fentanyl and there's other easy ways to make meth.
Green card holders also have a convenient wallet size for their green card, and they’re legally required to carry it with them at all times while in the US anyway.
However, a few months earlier due to a Google translate mixup where I thought I was ordering peppermint oil, I got 100ml of sassafras oil [0]. It's a precursor to MDMA and at least as restricted as pseudoephedrine.
edit: my bad, no it's codeine linctus that was banned, there was talk of making pseudoephedrine prescription only but that hasn't gone through.
We have the technology. "Behind the counter" could just mean a vending machine with good ID tech instead of queuing up for an overworked pharmacist behind a dozen people.
Pseudoephedrine should be easy and plentiful to obtain. I don't care if people use it to make meth. What they do in their private time doesn't concern me. Not being able to get Sudafed when I'm sick kills me. It's not like those people won't be able to get meth some other way.
We let people buy cars and cause 43,000 automobile deaths a year. People should be able to live life without stuffy noses. Maybe license people to buy meds and take it away if they abuse it? That's better than the draconian system we have now.
And don't get me started on ADHD medication and their shortages.
Edit: and there are 178,000 alcohol related deaths per year in the US. If you're going to allow that without prohibition, then please let us unstuff our noses.
I'm tired of living in a nanny state when we let people buy and own guns and swords and flamethrowers. Simply hiking on a mountain can kill you. Must we install guardrails on all the high places?
It's not that bad of a negative externality. Honestly. Not relative to all the other ones we've deemed acceptable. This is weird picking and choosing that doesn't make sense.
I sympathize with your broader point, but... how is that better? "Sorry, you were buying too much nasal decongestant a decade ago, so no cancer medication for you"?
Not that different from current situation: we have all our "license" to buy scheduled compounds revoked, but we still can get a lot of other compounds.
People were still trying to claim the program was a success because they had stopped gangs getting pseudo as a precursor.
But so what? it's done literally nothing to stop criminals profiting, nor to stop people getting addicted to meth, with all the associated public health and petty-criminal consequences of that. And now it's harder for ordinary people to get effective decongestant.
It just seems that nobody is willing to admit the whole thing was pointless.
The end result? The gangs just started importing pseudo, before later just switching to importing methamphetamine directly (something that Australia's deportation policies really helped with as the "501s" as we call them that were deported back to NZ often had existing connections that could facilitate the direct importation of meth).
It's a really interesting supply chain that involves organised crime groups in multiple countries, often starts in India for the precursors, then clandestine labs in Laos/Vietnam/Thailand overseen by Chinese groups in conjunction with local groups, then smuggled via the Pacific Islands, notably Fiji and Samoa where the Chinese groups have established transshipment facilities, before being smuggled into Australia and NZ by local groups who then distribute and supply it.
A new development has been the Central American cartels branching out from cocaine to meth so there's been a bunch of meth coming directly from the Americas.
>Maybe license people to buy meds and take it away if they abuse it?
I'm a bit confused, because you can buy it already with an ID, correct? You don't even need a purchasing license, just a drivers license or other government ID.
I just travelled there few weeks ago, and the government websites made it sound like it’s best to just not bring any pills at all (or chewing gum).
- Tool you can to use to check active ingredients and whether its allowed: https://www.hsa.gov.sg/personal-medication/check-requirement...
- Anything that might be controlled/require prescription, have to apply for permit it to bring it: https://www.hsa.gov.sg/personal-medication/submit-applicatio...
- They provide a tool to show illegal health products. Better not bring one of them: https://oscar.hsa.gov.sg/Publication/ahpdm/faces/AHPPublicat...
You can only buy from a pharmacist (behind the counter) and you need to provide your national ID number. Your purchase is put in a database that any pharmacist can see.
What's even worse, modern pseudoephedrine is produced in a form that makes meth synthesis from it extremely tedious and generally impossible in home conditions: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3793278/
I remember the video of the pharma rep or cop or whoever trying to make meth out of the new pills and the product getting squishy. Months later, a different video was published, where some household solvent was used to easily pull the very-dissolvable pseudoephedrine salts from the paste.
Anything that isn't directly physically addictive (e.g. opiates) or subject to a tragedy of the commons (e.g. antibiotics) should be over the counter.
Then, because the black market is already in violation of the law, there are no purity standards. The customer who thinks they're getting Adderall or codeine is actually getting fentanyl because fentanyl's much higher potency makes it easier to smuggle, but for the same reason makes it much more prone to addiction and overdose, especially when careless street dealers get their proportions wrong. All of which is avoided if you just let them buy it from the pharmacy.
Notice that there is no thriving black market for antibiotics propping up international drug cartels, because they're not addictive.
You want to control the general population’s access to physically-addictive substances to control addiction. Managing addicts is not a pharmaceutical matter.
Just yesterday on Reddit there was a thread that went viral for "cutter" reviews on Shein razor blades, with cutesy language like "beautiful beans for my followers" (referring to subcutaneous dermal appearance when deeply cut open). Every product can be abused in horrible ways. It's the nature of the stochastic bubble we're in. People will find every nook and cranny of the human experience.
You can't stop this stuff from happening. So at least let the normal use cases that benefit society through. Don't put everyone else in the same straight jacket. We don't deserve to be punished for the bad gradients some people fall into.
There is no thriving black market for antibiotics, because they are accessible when you need them (and most people need them very infrequently for a short duration). In contrast, I believe there is a black market for insulin in the US, and that's because of how ridiculously expensive it is. Exuberant pricing is a form of restricting access, too.
0: https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/pseudoephedrine/about-pseudoeph...
You ever seen a meth lab that blew up?
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/other-methamphetam...
> Other side effects may include violent urges or, similarly, the urge to be successful in business or finance. ... > We expect that the simultaneous trends of restricting pseudoephedrine sales while N-methylamphetamine becomes less expensive and of higher purity will make the methods presented here increasingly attractive.