So for clarity:
- Pseudoephedrine HCL is an effective medication, and can also be used to make Methamphetamines so is now more restricted although still over the counter. It is what is in the branded medicine Sudafed, but is basically a naturally occurring drug.
- Phenylephrine HCL is not an effective medication in tablet form, and the US FDA has decided recently to remove it from sale after studies showed it performs no better than placebo. This is what had been in the branded medicine Sudafed PE, and was a patented drug in 1927.
So one is an effective generic naturally discovered drug that cannot be patented, and the other is an ineffective drug that although off patent now has been pushed by the pharmaceutical industry for nearly 100 years. In fairness, nasal spray Phenylephrine is likely to be effective - it is the tablets that are ineffective.
The packaging is likely the same to deliberately confuse consumers, in the same way the original major brands are Sudafed and Sudafed PE. Once medications have to be bought from a pharmacist behind the counter rather than just taken off a shelf it sells less well, so better for the Pharamceutical industry to ensure people think they’re the same thing even though one is useless.
And yet the meth problem doesn’t seem to be going away…
Because the restriction was never going to reduce drug use. It does nothing to address addiction or treatment or the import of drugs.
Where it was effective was reducing the number of local meth cooks in states where restrictions have been the tightest. Some people still cross state lines to buy pseudoephedrine, but then why not just cook in a state where it’s available?
Make no mistake, the purpose of these restrictions are not to protect addicts from addictive substances. It was to protect property values for neighbors who don’t want to live in a cloud of piss.
Make no mistake, the purpose of these restrictions are not to protect addicts from addictive substances. It was to protect property values for neighbors who don’t want to live in a cloud of piss.
Legalizing and then restricting the manufacture to industrial-zoned property (just like other smelly stuff like paper mills and whatnot) would’ve accomplished the same thing.
Ah, but then youd5have created competition for the protected corporations.
I keep hearing about a meth and fentanyl epidemic, but as far as I’m aware, I haven’t met one person in my entire life that uses either of them.
Come here to Terre Haute, Indiana. You’ll meet a whole lot of people addicted to meth and various opioids.
It’s always fun when they decide to direct traffic.
God I love captialism
What if you crush and sniff the Phenylephrine pills, or dissolve in water and squirt it up your nose?
“Why is the packaging the exact same”
It isn’t? Yes, the graphics are identical, because why would Kroger bother spending money on a graphics artist to make two different packages? They don’t care.
The ingredient list on the front is very clearly not the same and tells you exactly what’s in it.
It’s still actively and deliberately misleading.
These two comments are incompatible. It can’t be, “they just didn’t hire another artist for a second package” as well as “deliberately misleading”.
What makes you say it’s deliberately misleading, rather than saving money?
It costs just about nothing to change a colour.
Companies likely also don’t hire “artists”, they get their marketing department to do this, and those are hired anyway. Might as well put them to work.
Maybe you carefully scrutinize each package before you buy it, making sure you’re not buying something almost identical to the other package which has different ingredients, but most people don’t have time to do that when they go shopping. And companies know it. Don’t defend deceptive practices.
The text is bigger on the second one and the pictures arent in the same position
Why do these small changes instead of copying one and changing the text
Wait, they’re finally admitting that Phenylephrine is completely and utterly useless!? Finally, I feel vindicated.
Very happy to live in Canada/Ontario where I could just pick up a basket of pseudoephedrine if I really wanted to. land of the free
Edit: Or Tylenol 1s for that matter
Edit 2: and somehow we don’t have a meth problem! ^only a crippling opioid epidemic^
The meth problem replaced the crack problem and is now an opiod problem.
“I think it’s time for us to find out who’s really behind all of this…”
pulls mask off opiod problem
“I knew it! It was untreated mental health/public healthcare issue all along!”
Maybe we could solve it by heavily criminalizing mental health crises and banning things like safe injection sites??
This guy politics 👍
Also, get someone with political power in the mental health professions to highly stigmatize drug users as party animals and lacking self-control so that they are further pushed away from legitimate help when they are treated as liars and manipulators by mental health clinicians. Include the idea that if anyone self-medicated due to a legitimate mental health condition after being pushed away from the health system by an overzealous provider that thought the person was merely seeking drugs, that provider was right all along!
Just to add to the confusion, the “pseudo” drug is the one that really works.
Now does anyone know, if I can crush my old PE pills and snort them, will that be the “effective nasal spray” they’re talking about?
Yes, you can. I have no idea if they’d do anything but you definitely can.
At least once.
One of them is also for decongestion and the other is for congestion.
They should really start calling them anti-rape whistles
So… you blow it constantly unless you’re being actively raped?
Kroger be lazy? or am I getting wooshed
That’s my first guess. Why bother changing the whole design when you can just edit the text?
Not sure what the reason is. But for some reason, the packaging is almost identical.
It’s cheaper.
They’re just matching the branding of the competition, “Sudafed PE Sinus Congestion” to confuse customers.
Edit: Apologies, basically a TLDR of banana’s response
What do you mean?
They arent exactly the same
The text is different, the size of the text is different, the position of the person is different, the logo doesnt have the same proportions, one of the triangles size is different and the size of the image with the snakes is different
I cant believe anyone could confuse them
