Starrfall on 22/6/2009 at 13:48

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I hate the new decongestant(s) so much! I'm pretty sure everyone does. The same sort of thing happened to me about a year ago or so, I was sick and bought some combo over the counter drug and it had the crappy new one and it was so subpar. Now if I really need a decongestant I use spray because I'm not buying that crap. The downside there is that you need to be a little careful in how you use it.

Has this just started in the UK? Pseudoephedrine was made request-only a few years ago here, and then a little later the brand name meds switched in the new crappy decongestant, probably because they were losing sales by forcing people to go to the counter and by taking out the pseudoephedrine the products could go back on the shelves.

Goddamn meth labs :mad:

ps: I like how sudafed called the old one "decongestant" because thats what it actually did but the new one is only "congestion relief" because it doesn't actually decongest but you might get a placebo effect or something and maybe feel a little better.

Paz on 22/6/2009 at 14:03

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There's a decent Frontline documentary which touches on some of the attempts to CRACK DOWN on Sudafed (and similar) to reduce the meth problem: (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/)

It's been a while since I saw it, but I believe it goes into detail about the series of lame compromises and difficulties that led to this current half-half policy; where you're just annoying people who want some Sudafed and not really tackling the meth issue at all.

But then I like Frontline because the guy who does all their voiceover is so soothing ahhhhh

d0om on 22/6/2009 at 14:38

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Looking slightly deeper into it, you can manufacture pseudoephedrine from Benzaldehyde, yeast, and glucose. (Which is how they make it industrially.)

I'm sure some simple fermentation and purification is completely beyond the organised meth-lab making criminal gangs who then modify it into meth, right? Or, you know, just buying it in India/China.

When your normal citizens suffer blocked up sinuses in a vain effort to stop illegal drugs, don't you think something has gone very, very wrong?

demagogue on 22/6/2009 at 14:42

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I was under the impression that this was ubiquitous. The other thing that happens is you get the same drug under very different packaging, sometimes at a greater price, so you'd do better to buy the cheap version of exactly the same thing.

I don't think, as a technical matter, it can rise to the level of consumer fraud unless it absolutely doesn't do what the consumer buys it for, but then you couldn't package it as a drug at all. It's just that if you're very particular about exactly what you want, you need to read the fine print. That's always the company's go-to argument ... everything is clearly on the label if the consumer would just read the small print. Similar looking packaging is only an issue for trademark theft, because it's about branding, not function.

demagogue on 22/6/2009 at 15:39

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Lots of brands have multiple drug lines, especially with common cold stuff. Tylenol Cold, Alka-seltzer Plus Cold, Sudafed Cold & Cough ...

And this is one reason companies try so hard to distinguish the brand from the product, why they'll insist on calling it Sudafed-brand decongestant and not Sudafed the decongestant.

Is it just the similar-looking packaging you don't like?

It's beyond obvious that they're using the power of the brand to pull (bait & switch) people to a new product. But that's what branding is all about; it's pretty much the point as long as it's not to the level of false labeling. What you're talking about is that it's gone to the level of some kind of fraud where somebody buys "Sudafed Congestion Relief" under the false impression that it's going to ... what? ... relieve their congestion?

I perfectly sympathize with you that it's a swarmy practice; everybody has been caught off guard by buying a brand thinking it's something familiar but then it's something unexpected you don't want. I just don't think it's quite to the level of fraud until they're really selling you something that doesn't do what it says, especially when it still says right on the label what it does.