NEWS: Oregon Makes Cold Pills Prescription Only

Ummm, can Oregon make an OTC drug prescription only? It seems to me there a bit of a federal preemption problem, vis a vis the whole FDA thing.

No, there's a rather large gulf between "Nothing" and "Useful" and "Unbelievably stupid".

Cold medicine isn't crank. Its cold medicine. Its not dangerous. Simply because you can use a complex chemical process to make it dangerous is not a reason to restrict a profoundly a useful, harmless and beneficial drug. Gasoline is pretty fucking dangerous when you vaporize and ignite it, are we gonna start issuing gas permits now?

but that's just the kicker - crime prevention in many ways is a double-edged sword. Just from the quote given (If can save just one meth baby....), it seems this legislation may be aimed at keeping the drug from becoming so easily accessable to new users.

i'm not going to presume that you don't know anyone who's been wiped out on meth, s5, but considering what I've seen what it does to people who get addicted, anything that helps to minimize it's impact is in my good books.

Seriously, I can't even pump my own gas in Oregon. What the fuck is that?

"If we can save one meth baby, it will be worth it."

I think I'm going to make this into a bumper sticker.

What a pain in the ass. I have bad allaergies and take Actifed which is the only drug that works on my allergies. In many states it is available behind the counter only. I was traveling this summer ran out of pills and could not get any because the pharmacy counter was closed. I almost went into an ashtma attack which I had not had in about 20 years. I hate this drug histeria bullshit.

when i had a really bad headache in france i stepped into the pharmacy and the pharmacy man pulled out about 5 boxes. the strongest one, he explained, worked very well but contained codiene. i thought wow, how convienient, and bought a box.
i can't believe they want to make allergy meds prescription only. how lame.

if anything they can just make it behind the counter. as for people making meth, can't they just order huge amounts over the internet anyway?

Everything that you said was made that much better by your sign in name.

I'm so glad my mom didn't die. That's why.

I'm looking at the meth problem and seeing it as way more troublesome than the crack problem. One reason is that while they are both dangerously addictive, the logistics of getting crack to the users is more difficult than gettting meth. Cocaine is a foreign commodity that must be brought into the country. The ingredients for meth are already here. The distribution problems associated with crack meant it didn't really make the inroads into the rural areas that it did in the cities. The opposite is true for meth. It is starting in the rural areas and migrating to the cities. I think this means that the coming meth problem is going to have a much greater effect on law enforcement, medicine, social services. In turn, this will affect 'us' a great deal more than being able to buy cold pills. Just imagine if meth was as availible as pot and alcohol when you were in high school.

It was.

im sorry if my sarcasm was not visible.

Oh, alright. Not so surprised, then.

Call me Cassandra.
Cold pills for everyone!

Its always nice to know that our politicians have their priorities in check

I don't know about allergy medicine, but I swear cold medicine dosn't work. I think we only buy it cause we have a cold and we want it to go away. but you just have to wait it out. they should just sell sugar pills for cold medicine and not tell us.

What does that mean?
I'm just saying.. it WAS just as available as pot, and I went to high school in the early 90's.. a pretty nice school too. Wasn't ghetto or anything. From what I hear, it's even more available now.

[Edited on Aug 04, 2005 by zwiebel]

FYI - you can get a prescription for non-prescription drugs - people do it all the time. The main reason is so that insurance pays for it, but it would solve your problem as well.