![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIn Season 2 of Breaking Bad Walt decides it's time to scale up the drug making operation. There's a supply chain problem with going big, though. Jesse has been sourcing pseudephedrine pills, an over-the-counter cold medicine that can be crushed up and used as of the key precursors to making methamphetamine, by sending a network of buyers out to drugstores to buy boxes. He can manage that at small scale but not 5x or 10x the quantity because in 2008, when the show was filmed, there were already laws limiting the sale of pseudephedrine— because of exactly the criminal drug-making this show is about.
Pseudephedrine is a common medication that is sold under the brand name Sudafed and plenty of generics. Except it's not so common anymore. Long ago I could just pop into a CVS when I was feeling sick, but a few bottles of different pills, and get relief. A 2006 federal law required stores to limit purchases and check ID. I remember blogging years ago that I had to show more ID to buy cough syrup than I had to show to vote. And in that case, the thing I was buying didn't even contain pseudephedrine. The government's clamp-down was so tough that retailers acted out of fear and limited not just pseudephedrine but anything that seemed even vaguely similar to it.
Today I can still buy pseudephedrine, by going to the pharmacist who keeps it locked behind the counter. I still have to show ID, which is recorded, and I'm still limited in how much I can purchase at a time. But the stores don't always stock it. This is one of the other consequences of strict limits: it gets basically taxed out of existence. Make it hard to get, and people will give up trying to get it. When people stop trying to buy it, even for legit uses, stores stop stocking it regularly. Why carry something for which there's little demand?
Meanwhile the pharmacy and pharmaceutical industries shifted to foist a stupid placebo on us. They replaced pseudephedrine with phenylephrine— a drug that was proven not to work. Thanks, meth makers, you made it harder to for the rest of us to treat our colds and allergies. And thanks, War on Drugs, Big Pharma, and Weak-Kneed FDA. 👎
Pseudephedrine is a common medication that is sold under the brand name Sudafed and plenty of generics. Except it's not so common anymore. Long ago I could just pop into a CVS when I was feeling sick, but a few bottles of different pills, and get relief. A 2006 federal law required stores to limit purchases and check ID. I remember blogging years ago that I had to show more ID to buy cough syrup than I had to show to vote. And in that case, the thing I was buying didn't even contain pseudephedrine. The government's clamp-down was so tough that retailers acted out of fear and limited not just pseudephedrine but anything that seemed even vaguely similar to it.
Today I can still buy pseudephedrine, by going to the pharmacist who keeps it locked behind the counter. I still have to show ID, which is recorded, and I'm still limited in how much I can purchase at a time. But the stores don't always stock it. This is one of the other consequences of strict limits: it gets basically taxed out of existence. Make it hard to get, and people will give up trying to get it. When people stop trying to buy it, even for legit uses, stores stop stocking it regularly. Why carry something for which there's little demand?
Meanwhile the pharmacy and pharmaceutical industries shifted to foist a stupid placebo on us. They replaced pseudephedrine with phenylephrine— a drug that was proven not to work. Thanks, meth makers, you made it harder to for the rest of us to treat our colds and allergies. And thanks, War on Drugs, Big Pharma, and Weak-Kneed FDA. 👎
