The motivation as most people already understand is that pseudoephedrine is a key ingredient in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamines, so measures reducing its availability may discourage people who can’t easily obtain it from making their own drugs.

What many people don’t know about is that pseudoephedrine’s over-the-counter replacement, phenylephrine, simply is not effective taken as a pill or syrup which is how it’s most often packaged. Have you noticed your cold medication hasn’t worked worth a damn lately? Take a close look at the active ingredients list; most drug makers have quietly substituted phenylephrine for pseudoephedrine in their cold remedies.

Moreover, what the law’s proponents have so far overlooked is that addicts and the criminal elements who supply them are highly motivated. Making prescription-only a medication that would remain available over the counter in other states, not to mention more readily and cheaply from, say, Mexico, would have negligible impact on methamphetamine addiction. What the proposed law might instead do is shift the manufacture of meth to areas where pseudoephedrine is more easily obtained like, say, Mexico. (As if the Mexican drug gangs needed any more business and by extension, money and power…)

What the proposed law will certainly do is make effective cold symptom remedies more expensive and less accessible to law-abiding citizens, thereby generally increasing the level of suffering (since the common cold isn’t going away anytime soon)… One might plausibly speculate that there would also be some economic impact due to reduced productivity, with more workers immobilized at any given time by cold symptoms.

The bill is currently before the state assembly; Californians, contact your Assemblymember and let them know that this proposed law is a bad idea that needs to be nipped in the bud.

In the meantime, I’ll be stocking up on pseudoephedrine, just in case the law passes and forces cold-relief-seeking citizens to become drug smugglers.

Therefore I was rather taken aback when I saw an ad on television promoting Macy’s “Veterans Day Sale”. While I would never argue against their right to hold a sale for any reason that they want, to reduce the name of the day to an excuse to discount prices on goods and sell more merchandise seems a bit tasteless to say the least. Could they cast a more appallingly banal light upon what’s supposed to be a somber, meaningful occasion?

Freedom is not free, and it can’t be purchased at your stores, Macy’s. Shame on you!

Still, I can hardly be indifferent or neutral in the whole thing, given how the outcome does ultimately affect me personally and the rest of the world to no small degree. Encouraging Janice’s participation in this year’s vote is as close as I’ve come to voting myself. To be honest, not since the 1995 Québec Referendum have I felt as great a stake in a vote.