 | Glen Mathis has been the co-owner of Mathis Drug Store in Girard since 1983. For more information or to reach Glen, please call 620-724-4313. |
Health & Medicine
2011-04-01 13:55:00
Sudafed…should it be a prescribed med?
Question: As I understand it, you may soon need a prescription to buy Sudafed cold medicine or like items. I am wondering if this is worth all the trouble?
Answer: This is a question that many people are asking. While I understand the frustration, making Sudafed available by prescription only has some advantages.
In 2006, a law was enacted that required anyone buying pseudoephedrine to show ID and sign a log. The information is then logged into a database, which is intended to curb buying it in large quantities and therefore curb abuse of the drug. Pseudoephedrine is found in several leading cold and allergy medications, including Sudafed, and is used in the production of crystal meth, a highly addictive drug.
Ideally, this system alerts the seller of someone buying in quantity. However, it is not difficult to stay ahead of the system and buy from several sources. Many states have taken aggressive but different approaches to a common problem. For example, Oregon raised eyebrows in 2005 when it became the first state to require a doctor’s prescription for tablets of Sudafed, Claritin D and several other common cold and allergy medicines. The law was deemed by some as a huge hassle.
Six years later, Oregon’s law is again gaining attention. This time, it is because the number of meth labs found in the state has plummeted from 192 in 2005, the year before the prescription law went into effect, to just 10 last year even as the number of meth labs in other states has surged. Combined with other anti-meth measures such as putting targeted cold medicines behind the counter instead of selling them off the shelf, monthly meth lab seizures have declined 96 percent in Oregon.
It is important to note that meth can not be made with out Pseudoephedrine and medicines containing it were only available by prescription prior to 1976. While inconvenient, and admittedly has other downfalls, it is difficult to overlook the results of states that have enacted stricter laws.
