the Scott Stein

I have allergies like you read about in Allergies magazine: animal dander (dogs, especially cats); trees; grass; dust; ragweed--air, basically. In addition to shots and prescription medication, I occasionally take a decongestant. Not a big deal, except a few months back the Government started treating Sudafed like it was the active ingredient in a dirty bomb. You know, the kids with their cell phones and their rock and roll, buying up all the Sudafed to use in their labs, causing the Meth epidemic.

To get Sudafed now, you have to ask the pharmacist for it. Last time I was at the local CVS I was in a rush, so I bought the substitute that's available without waiting for the pharmacist. It was based on some non-Meth ingedient, but the box said it was a decongestant, and I figured it would work as well. I was wrong.

It was like taking nothing. Which made sense. The Government forces Sudafed behind the counter, and a week later the Sudafed company has a new over-the-counter decongestant that's just as good? If it were as good, it would have been offered for sale in place of the evil-Meth version voluntarily, before the law said. The reason it wasn't is simple--it doesn't do anything.

My lovely wife went today to CVS to get a few things and I asked her to pick up some Sudafed--the real stuff (or the generic version), with the ingredient that actually relieves congestion. I told her she'd have to ask the pharmacist. She went, with my almost-four-year-old son, and asked for a single package of Sudafed. My wife looks like the opposite of whatever you imagine a Meth Queen looks like, even without our son in tow. Not only did she have to show ID and sign for the Sudafed (they even took down her address), but she had to buy it at the back counter from the pharmacist--she couldn't carry the box around while she shopped and pay for it at the front of the store. She ended up waiting on a long line with a cranky child, who "had to have" every piece of candy and crappy toy he saw, behind old people getting prescriptions filled, so she could get me a decongestant that does not require a prescription.

Meanwhile, the only epidemic I'm aware of is the epidemic misuse of the word epidemic (which might be a pandemic by now). This whole Sudafed and Meth crackdown thing probably has all sorts of social consequences--people in jail, escalating prices, black market violence. But what really pisses me off is, from now on--my wife informs me--I'll be buying my own decongestants.

A few weeks back I wrote about my wife's difficulty buying me Sudafed, because the stuff is guarded by rattlesnakes and fire-breathing scorpions at the local CVS. Well, yesterday I went to CVS because I needed some Sudafed (the generic equivalent). But the pharmacy was closed--not the store, which was open, but the pharmacy. And you can't get Sudafed over the counter even though it's an over-the-counter medication. So I left CVS without my medication and was generally miserable the rest of the night. I didn't have any left. I probably should stock up on the stuff, but they won't sell you much of it at one time. Plus, stockpiling Sudafed is the sort of thing that might get you in trouble these days. I went back to CVS today and bought a package of decongestants, after showing my license, having my address and name recorded, and signing a federal registry. It's a good thing these measures have ended drug use by all children and restored America to her former glory, or I might be annoyed.