The market is essentially just one step beyond basic snake oil. Instead companies mix various "approved" ingredients to create some branded concoction that they hope will stick from psychosomatic effects. For example "Excedrin" is just aspirin+acetaminophen+caffeine yet so many people swear by it rather than popping the two simple pills and considering if they really need another cup of coffee. The worst is when brand names are abused with suffixes to mean wildly different drugs, as if affinity for a corporate brand should come before consideration of the active ingredients.

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.