But not everything is desirable.
CNS:
Missouri Officials Back More Restrictions Aimed at Meth
Jefferson City, Mo. (AP) – The Missouri governor and attorney general want to make Missouri the third state to require a doctor’s prescription to buy cold and allergy medicines that can be used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.
Gov. Jay Nixon and Attorney General Chris Koster announced their support on Tuesday for legislation imposing a prescription mandate on medicines containing pseudoephedrine, which is sold under brands such as Sudafed, Claritin-D and Aleve Cold & Sinus.
Missouri for years has led the nation in busts of methamphetamine labs, even while enacting increasingly stricter laws.
Proposals to require prescriptions for the medication have been rejected in the past by the Missouri Legislature and face opposition from the pharmaceutical industry. But Nixon and Koster say more safeguards are needed.
Sure, if you want government to stop the production and use of meth, and assuming you have the Mexican border 100% sealed to prevent meth from Mexico coming in country, then of course you can do it. But there is always an opportunity cost to everything — Should Nixon and Koster get what they want, then curing a common cold with pseudoephedrine will go from a several dollar OTC medication purchase to a several hundred dollar doctor visit yielding a script to get a bottle of pills that will cost you several tens of dollars. I don’t know why big pharma is so opposed to this bill — Seems like they would benefit in the long run.
On the other end of the spectrum, the easier you make it to get pseudoephedrine, the more likely it is that meth labs and meth use will increase.
Therefore, the trick is to find the right balance between squelching the illicit meth industry and ensuring inexpensive ways for people to mitigate common cold symptoms. The system we have in place, limiting sales to a certain amount per month per person, using centralized logging to prevent store hopping, is ideal.
