Just more prohibition legislation designed to make lawmakers feel better about waging a losing war.

The ingredients that mass produce it are pretty much all controlled by the drug industry and produced via mass OTC sales. They are actually incredibly easy to control if they were regulated.

You can be a "Libertarian" and oppose any regulation of drugs, and I respect that. But I don't think the "practicality" argument holds up here at all.

the ones that are making it by the barrel are making it the old-fashioned way.

And the easiest way of getting pseudoephedrine is through cold medication. Are you suggesting that meth makers have another source of cheap, abundant PE?

I'm really not following your logic at all here. There are a shitload of meth makers who are not chemists. Should we make it easier for them to distribute their dirty meth simply because most chemists can synthesize the stuff?

Making drugs illegal does nothing to keep them out of the hands of users. Locking users up does nothing to stop drugs.

As per Meth - requiring a prescription for any and all pseudoephidrine will not stem the tide - it will just make the meth cooks change sources. They could go to Mexico and buy the Benadryl, or they could order wholesale online. If we flat out banned benadryl, a new drug would take its place. This has all happened before. In the 70s, when the major heroin smuggling rings were busted, it took about 2 days for new smuggling rings to pop up, and with a much more dangerous product: black tar heroin.

What I argue for is complete legalization of all drugs - and make meth OTC - so that a user can be sure they are getting a pure product, fully regulated, and the money we spend on the DEA instead goes to treatment.

A gas station refused to sell me Benadryl when I was breaking out in hives -- ended up going to the ER. Because they thought it was used to make meth. Maybe combination remedies with it, but I was just looking for diphenhydramine.

Edit to add: it's the antihistamine that's used in a lot of OTC sleep remedies.

Given the already tight and paranoid attitude taken about these drugs, moving them behind the counter, requiring ID, etcetera, if that doesn't stop mass sales, how will this do it? These people aren't getting supplied by just walking into a random pharmacy and buying 1,000 boxes of Sudafed. They're being supplied under the table by crooked pharmacists and clerks, or stealing it out of back rooms and delivery trucks, etcetera.

How is making someone go and get a prescription every time they have a cold REALLY going to impact the meth industry? Short answer, it won't, at all. It's strictly feel-good legislation.

get cold medicine that actually works, like Mucinex-D or Coricidin HBP, without showing my license or being made to feel like "I'm" the criminal.

Last week, my husband ran out of his Allegra at the same time I came down with a cold. Iwas told by my doc to take Mucinex. We weren't allowed to buy it at the same time or put it on the same license. As it is, hubby now needs to go get his Allegra 24-hr every 10 days for $18-$20 cash out of pocket each trip. He only gets 10 pills and is not allowed to buy 2 boxes. He asked about buying a 10pill box of 24hr and a 10pill box of 12hr (cause if you screw up your schedule, a 12hr pill might fill the gap). Still the answer was no.

Last year, when his Allegra was a script, it was covered by insurance (we still paid - $18 per script), but the script was for 30 days, and he could have it refilled 3x before having to get his script renewed.

I wanted to try Aleve-D for Sinus problems. I had to sign my life away so that I made sure that I wasn't using it for Meth. I told the girl that I'm not a chemist - how the heck would I know that. She would only give me a 10 day supply. I had to give her my driver's license and sign the form stating I was using the medication for it's prescribed use.

I found a new pharmacist that actually sells pseudoephedrine -- they won't at Wal-Mart pharmacies, etc., anymore in my state.

He takes your blood pressure as part of an exam, checks your ID, and will sell Mucinex-D... but I don't know if he does to anyone or just those of us who come in looking and sounding absolutely pathetic from being sick, like I have been the two times I've bought it.

It was a big part of the reason I learned about how pharma keeps this drug going.

so as to make it much, much harder for cookers to extract the PE.

I don't think I'd side with the Oklahoma narcs.

It's already harder to buy cold medicine than a gun in Oklahoma.