[CodeAndCuffs]

I mean we can see a demonstrable and quantifiable MASSIVE decrease in meth usage and overdose circa 2005 when the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act went into effect.

Also, it's still available without a prescription, last I checked, it was just behind the counter/required an ID to track if you're grabbing a pack from every Walgreens in a 50 mile radius in a single night

[technothrasher]

> I mean we can see a demonstrable and quantifiable MASSIVE decrease in meth usage and overdose circa 2005 when the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act went into effect.

Really? I couldn't find any data from that far back, but data from 2009 on shows that meth usage, overdose, and arrests climb pretty dramatically pretty much every year.

[Arrath]

> Also, it's still available without a prescription, last I checked,

That's jurisdiction dependent. I had to remember to pack some when traveling for work in Oregon, since it was not available, even behind the counter.

[Nursie]

Here in Australia we have the same restrictions on pseudoephedrine, possibly worse ones (you have to show ID and it gets recorded centrally so you don’t just pharmacy-hop)

And it’s done nothing. Hasn’t affected availability. Hasn’t cut down on illicit lab operations. Nothing.

People will say “It has cut down on the amount of pseudoephedrine going to illegal meth operations”, as if that in itself is a useful outcome instead of utterly meaningless.

[cwsx]

When I lived in Sydney I had a few friends that frequently bought Rikodeine (dihydrocodeine cough syrup), which is also meant to be tracked via pharmacists recording IDs. My friends knew what pharmacies didn't bother to track it, normally if you were a 'repeat' customer and knew the pharmacist. They were able to buy 10~ bottles in a day from 8 - 10 pharmacies, repeating every few days. This was also in Sydney's central cbd so there's a pharmacy every other block.

I assume the situation is similar with pseudoephedrine, though the drug class/restrictions may be different.

[Nursie]

Interesting you can get rikodeine at all, given that even mild (8mg) codeine tablets are now prescription only here. That stuff (from a quick search) appears to still be available OTC.

As someone who has always used low-dose codeine+whatever analgesics when I have had a bad cold or migraine, I resent these being removed from the market recently as well. People can tell me that paracetamol and ibuprofen are just as effective until they're blue in the face, but that little bit of opiate uplift when I'm feeling like absolute shit was very psychologically helpful... Oh well, this is the world we live in.

[quickthrowman]

> I mean we can see a demonstrable and quantifiable MASSIVE decrease in meth usage and overdose circa 2005 when the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act went into effect.

It’s now synthesized in industrial sized cartel owned labs in Mexico using Chinese precursors and smuggled into the US, there’s no reason to keep pseudoephedrine restricted when it’s easier and cheaper to just buy the plentiful and cheap meth on the street.

[Fatnino]

Cheap meth can't compete with free shop lifted ingredients in homemade meth.

[pdonis]

> it's still available without a prescription, last I checked, it was just behind the counter/required an ID

Yes, which effectively makes it the same as needing a prescription because you can only get it if the pharmacy counter is open. Which is more restricted hours than the drugstore or grocery store itself.

[2devnull]

Do you know it was pseudoephedrine?

I remember you could buy bottles of mini-thins at the pos of pretty much every liquor store in the country in the late 90s/early 00s. Used to be sold in bottles of 100 for like 5 bucks.

[Fatnino]

My sister is on the short side. She went to the counter to buy some of this stuff and the pharmacist refused to believe her ID that said she was (substantially) older than 18. Granted, it was a California issued ID and the pharmacy was in Illinois, but still, what the hell?

[goodluckchuck]

Source?