[posted to the sci.med.pharmacy newsgroup. Commenting on the recent
proliferation of state laws requiring pseudoephedrine-containing
over-the-counter drug products to be sold by pharmacists only, to prevent
illegal manufacture of methamphetamine. Pseudoephedrine, a widely marketed
decongestant (Sudafed), is being used as a chemical precursor to make
methamphetamine for abuse purposes.]

I believe that one's perspective on history is relative, or proportional, to
one's experience.  Once again, we are about to undergo a change in pharmacy
practice that ought to be viewed in two ways: as a necessary step for the
times, but also as a very sad commentary on them.

For many younger pharmacists and younger consumers, this change in the
regulatory status of pseudoephedrine is an obvious remedy to a major
problem. But, as one in his 29th year as a pharmacist, I am watching this
happening with sadness. I say this because this medication has been a
valuable over-the-counter remedy for millions of people for decades, and for
it to have to feel the probe of the regulators, and be limited to
pharmacist-only sale just like (allowed in some states) codeine-containing
cough syrups, is, to me, an unfair attack on the freedom of the product's
millions of legitimate users as well as an attack on the freedom of
commerce. While I agree that the societal cost of illegal methamphetamine
manufacture has become high, I also believe that this unprecedented
regulatory change---restricting access to an established, beneficial OTC
medication---is equally costly. True, this change may make things easier for
the courts, the police, and parents, but what it says to me is that we are
becoming militant about legislating behavior at the expense of choice.
Setting this precedent will be the camel's nose for even more intrusive
regulations.

Dr. Robert Becker, a physician from upstate New York, wrote in 1985 that,
"There are many diseases, but only one health."  This is true of a society
as well as an organism. The ever-expanding body of drug regulation is a
Tinkertoy solution for what are actually grave spiritual problems among our
people. It would be better to recover that one, total health by gaining
access to a Higher Power than it would be to police the problems that
emanate from spiritual sickness. We need stronger families, not stronger
regulations. We need hope, not hype. We need a kind of leadership that is
not currently found on earth.

Let's not lose our life perspective somewhere in the pages of the Federal
Register.