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My sinuses deserve privacy, too.
May. 3rd, 2006 09:26 amThere's nothing like being woken up for good of a morning by having one corglette trying to dig the hair out of your scalp while the other play-fights with the boxer in your face -- by which I mean, my nose was catching the occasional stray tooth. Now THAT is an alarm clock.
I was mostly awake already, thankfully, or I might have been startled out of a year or two's worth; I'd taken an antihistamine before bed, because I've been having breathing issues recently (allergens? dunno) and between a BreatheRight strip and the meds, it makes for a fairly productive night's sleep. The antihistamine in specific is pseudoephedrine, which is the ingredient in a whole lot of over-the-counter (OTC) cold and allergy medicines.
However, it's been difficult for me recently, since my last Big Cold, to refill my pill bottle. See, the one I usually get comes in packets of 12, and a vehement run of stuffiness will go through that with annoying rapidity. I used to get 4 or 5 boxes at a time, fill up the bottle, and be done with it for a good while. Walgreen's (a national chemist's chain here) had had very poor stocks of their generic, so I tried going to CVS, which recently bought up and coverted a Florida-local chain of stores. The pharmacist (this is significant, hang onto this for a mo') even came out and helped me look on the counters for a product containing what I wanted: pseudoephedrine HCl for the sinuses, guafenesin and dextromethorophan (sp?) for my apparent post-nasal drip/coughing annoyance. We looked for several minutes until I found something which also contained aceitominaphen (Tylenol), which was more than what I wanted, but I was running short on time.
Here's the interesting bit. When I got to the counter with my one paltry box, the checker asked for my ID, opened a great big binder and started to write down my information. Apparently all the pseudoephedrine products are supposed to be behind the counter -- somebody needs to tell the pharmacy department, don't you think? -- and you have to ask for them; then, per a FEDERAL law passed recently, citizens are only allowed to purchase 3.6 grams of the product per day, to a total of about 9 grams per month.
[insert flaming fit of righteous indignation here]
Pseudoephedrine can be extracted from OTC meds to make crystal meth. Manufacturers will employ, per the Dept. of Justice, smurfing (multiple purchasers of limit or sub-limit quantities) and shelf-sweeping (buying everything off the shelf) purchasing techniques to get large quantities from legit sources, like chemists'. Therefore one of the state-level restrictions was adapted, run by Congress and passed as a federal law with the parameters I mentioned above.
Why is this bad? Two things: Why not just make pseudoephedrine a controlled substance, Schedule IV or whatever, and not pass superfluous legislation? A prescription is, on the whole, easy enough to get.
The bigger thing is: Who is controlling that database of purchasers? The current government is, quite obviously, for sale to the highest bidder. Is somebody sharing this database of who-bought-how-much-when with the pharmaceutical companies, who have enormous lobby power in Washington? Don't you think they would love to get their hands on something that specific? What security measures are CVS, home of the big binder, employing on that very binder? How do they submit it? How is the DoJ processing the data, and how securely? Government computers are hacked and cracked all the time, after all.
Why are we criminalising people with colds and allergies, when you've got, say, alcohol out there producing more than enough deaths and crippled births out there?
I walked out without making any purchases. I've got enough departments keeping track of me as it is.
I was mostly awake already, thankfully, or I might have been startled out of a year or two's worth; I'd taken an antihistamine before bed, because I've been having breathing issues recently (allergens? dunno) and between a BreatheRight strip and the meds, it makes for a fairly productive night's sleep. The antihistamine in specific is pseudoephedrine, which is the ingredient in a whole lot of over-the-counter (OTC) cold and allergy medicines.
However, it's been difficult for me recently, since my last Big Cold, to refill my pill bottle. See, the one I usually get comes in packets of 12, and a vehement run of stuffiness will go through that with annoying rapidity. I used to get 4 or 5 boxes at a time, fill up the bottle, and be done with it for a good while. Walgreen's (a national chemist's chain here) had had very poor stocks of their generic, so I tried going to CVS, which recently bought up and coverted a Florida-local chain of stores. The pharmacist (this is significant, hang onto this for a mo') even came out and helped me look on the counters for a product containing what I wanted: pseudoephedrine HCl for the sinuses, guafenesin and dextromethorophan (sp?) for my apparent post-nasal drip/coughing annoyance. We looked for several minutes until I found something which also contained aceitominaphen (Tylenol), which was more than what I wanted, but I was running short on time.
Here's the interesting bit. When I got to the counter with my one paltry box, the checker asked for my ID, opened a great big binder and started to write down my information. Apparently all the pseudoephedrine products are supposed to be behind the counter -- somebody needs to tell the pharmacy department, don't you think? -- and you have to ask for them; then, per a FEDERAL law passed recently, citizens are only allowed to purchase 3.6 grams of the product per day, to a total of about 9 grams per month.
[insert flaming fit of righteous indignation here]
Pseudoephedrine can be extracted from OTC meds to make crystal meth. Manufacturers will employ, per the Dept. of Justice, smurfing (multiple purchasers of limit or sub-limit quantities) and shelf-sweeping (buying everything off the shelf) purchasing techniques to get large quantities from legit sources, like chemists'. Therefore one of the state-level restrictions was adapted, run by Congress and passed as a federal law with the parameters I mentioned above.
Why is this bad? Two things: Why not just make pseudoephedrine a controlled substance, Schedule IV or whatever, and not pass superfluous legislation? A prescription is, on the whole, easy enough to get.
The bigger thing is: Who is controlling that database of purchasers? The current government is, quite obviously, for sale to the highest bidder. Is somebody sharing this database of who-bought-how-much-when with the pharmaceutical companies, who have enormous lobby power in Washington? Don't you think they would love to get their hands on something that specific? What security measures are CVS, home of the big binder, employing on that very binder? How do they submit it? How is the DoJ processing the data, and how securely? Government computers are hacked and cracked all the time, after all.
Why are we criminalising people with colds and allergies, when you've got, say, alcohol out there producing more than enough deaths and crippled births out there?
I walked out without making any purchases. I've got enough departments keeping track of me as it is.
