Yes, that's what works for me. And of course it used to be available OTC just like useless phenlyephrine until the government decided to control access to it because of fears of meth--while still allowing phenylephrine to be available OTC even though it can also be used to make meth.

If you try to keep milk cold by putting it in the oven, that’s improper usage. It won’t stay cold.

If you’re saying people are trying to get high and are successful getting high, then it sounds like they’re accomplishing their goal and their usage of the product is proper for their intended use case.

Edit: Oh, you’re saying you don’t like what others are doing, but aren’t actually willing to state the fact that its just like your opinion man.

Look at this wonderful anti-tiger dust I've invented?

But this is the USA, there are no wild tigers within thousands of miles of here.

See how effective my dust is?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Passed as part of the Patriot Act re-authorization bill in 2005, because everybody knows terrorists and pseudoephedrine go hand in hand.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/acetaminophen_....

Aspirin has a lower standard dose (325 mg), higher LD50 (probably around 20-25 g), and is generally safer. It has fallen out of favor because it's known to cause an exceedingly rare but deadly syndrome in a tiny percentage of children, and because it can have gastroenterological side effects.

Ibuprofen is probably the safest option? I'm sure it can be overdosed, but it almost never happens, whereas acetaminophen results in tons of hospitalizations every year.

Ibuprofen can also be liver toxic, but I believe the LD50 is significantly higher than the other options. I have not been able to find an exact number online.

As has been mentioned by others in this discussion, ibuprofen can also cause stomach upset (my wife has this problem, even when she takes it with food).

Are you kidding? Ibuprofen like most NSAIDS is terrible on the GI tract and the kidneys. People with healthy kidneys are usually fine with short courses, but even people with relatively mild chronic kidney disease should avoid NSAIDs.

People in their 20s that overuse NSAIDs end up needing kidney transplants. it's not that uncommon. The most common cause of peptic ulcer disease of this demographic (affluent westerners) after H pylori is NSAID use.

> It has fallen out of favor because it's known to cause an exceedingly rare but deadly syndrome in a tiny percentage of children

This has really nothing to do why aspirin has less common use among adults. Aspirin has poor analgesic effects relative to the doses and the risks of GI complications.

> acetaminophen results in tons of hospitalizations every year.

The impact of NSAID related complications is far greater in terms of kidney transplants and upper endoscopy interventions, and related ICU stays.

I've heard it can damage the stomach lining if taken at the wrong time relative to eating. But yeah probably still the least-bad first-resort painkiller.

Well, it doesn’t help that most states require you to go to the pharmacy counter for the stuff that actually works (pseudoephedrine), and in some states you actually need a prescription.

I think it's generally good to have a mild fever since it's how your body makes itself inhospitable to viruses

Similar deceit happens with cleaning products, where "Clorox" spray or "Clorox" wipes aren't bleach at all. Rather the spray is just some mild acid (a poorer disinfectant), and the wipes are quat (aka "Lysol", makes your pets sick). This kind of thing should be patently illegal - any brand should be required to have consistent active ingredients.

Of course this isn't even considering the criminalization of well-working pseudoephedrine due to the government's dark ages persecution of drug-users-plus-everyone-else.

The only issue is you can only take them for a few days straight, or you’ll have rebound congestion when you try to quit. There are oodles of stories online of people who didn’t heed that advice and upped their dosages again and again for months.

Here’s the best method: Afrin (etc.) at night so you can sleep, and during the day if you have something particular important going on. The next day, after you wake do a sinus rinse with xylitol. This clears out the Afrin preventing dependence, but xylitol also keeps things somewhat suppressed.

Continue until cold is done. Source: me, a person with a ridiculously bad immune system that has multiple colds a year that last 3 weeks with nearly full congestion.

(Also, Adderall is great for colds)

Do not go around saying this, even if it’s true. We’re experiencing a huge Adderall shortage, and the last thing we need is people who were on the fence deciding to get a Rx because it might help them with cold symptoms in the winter.

It's probably a bad idea for anyone with a heart condition, in case anyone out there is getting a not-so-bright-idea.

Thanks DEA, you used to just be able to get that in Nyquil and all the others, but the DEA in their moronic idea that drug dealers are going and buying precursors from the local CVS (not stealing them in bulk) has to abuse millions of law abiding sick people forcing them to sign the "papers please" log book treating them like criminals for wanting to feel better.

Which raises the question, what what the real goal in preventing people from buying functional medicines?

Frankly I think the specific intent was exactly this. The main effect was to cause human suffering and Occams razor tells me the main effect was probably the intended effect.

I think Hanlon's razor is more appropriate.

Somewhere there was a team of people in the government who worked untold hours studying this, proposing solutions and ultimately having change enacted. This would have been good for career progression for all involved, not because it was actually good, but simply because they did something. And therein lies government.

In the DEAs case it was literally confirmed to be operating on malice since at least the Nixon and Reagan years, when it was deliberately wielded as a weapon to disrupt hippies and black communities, specifically.

Because it ruins people's lives, that's why.

I'm all for medicine that helps people and amphetamines absolutely can, but methamphetamine doesn't help people. It enslaves them.

That is with out getting into the debate on if it is even ethical for a government to regulation what a person consumes, even if you believe it is the current method of criminalization and prohibition is not effective in the stated goal of reducing drug use/abuse, a lesson we should have learned as a society with the passage of the 18th amendment and its repeal the 21st amendment

Of course that is not the real goal but .....

I don't know how it compares to organzied production, but people certainly do cook meth from retail pseudoephedrine. In my neck of woods, it's a fairly popular pasttime, since all ingredients can be purchased in a single trip to a shopping mall.

Going from severely congested to not at all, every four hours, makes me think that it's got to be a "this only works in some people" drug.

Is there something else you’re doing or taking alongside that might explain it?

If not … well, happy placebo-ing to you!

So to say it 'doesn't work' is nonsense.

DXM only products were common before the government noticed that teens were taking DXM recreationally.