I needed an ID to buy this
Hanna and I are both in the throes of winter colds much like Marie Anelle described yesterday (though I got through mine in a week, knock on wood). And last night, when Hanna went for the cough medicine in order to sleep, we discovered our bottle of syrup had experience, like, two years ago. So I volunteered — as the less-ill of the pair — to run down to the CVS near us and buy a new bottle. I threw on my coat and boots over the pajamas, pocketed my debit card and keys, and left the apartment. In the store I found what I was looking for and made my way to the self check-out machine. So far so good.
Well, I realize I’m out of the loop on this kinda shit, because I just don’t by cough syrup all that often … but apparently you need to be over eighteen to buy cough syrup now? Because the woman at the checkout asked for my license like I was buying beer or something. Luckily I had it, because I always take my ID when I’m going to pay with a card (not that anyone ever checks, but hey). So it’s not like my evening was particularly inconvenienced by the experience?
But the thing is: what if you weren’t eighteen and you needed cough syrup? It’s not like every kid below the age of eighteen lives with their parents. And it’s not like parents never go on overnight trips or vacations, leaving their teenagers alone for a few days. Somewhere out there, I thought walking home, there are teenagers who are going without sleep because people are freaked out about over-the-counter drug abuse.
I brought this up with Hanna when I got home. “Did you know you had to be over the age of eighteen to buy cough syrup?” I bitched, “I can’t believe this. What if you were sixteen and you needed it?”
“Was it behind the counter?” She asked
“No.”
“Well, then,” she pointed out, practically, “you shoplift.”
“So basically we’re encouraging kids to shoplift instead of buying the drugs they need to get a good night’s sleep and go to school the next day?”
“Right.”
“Brilliant.”
The packaging on the cough syrup bottle I bought sent me to this website, StopMedicineAbuse.org, aimed at parents and eager to tell me about the dangers of kids getting high from cough medicine. Oh-kay? It’s just … this isn’t like cigarettes or wine, where there is no actual legitimate use of the substance as a healing agent. Young people, under the age of eighteen, get sick. They get colds. They will likely need cough medicine. They won’t always have an adult around to buy it for them.
This seems like a fairly clear-cut case of ageism in action to me. Is it just my snot-addled brain speaking here? I don’t understand how we can restrict teenagers from purchasing a bottle of over-the-counter medication they might need for legitimate reasons. I can see saying, “gee, you can’t buy ten bottles at once!” But, none? That’s dangerous territory, in my opinion, skating close to (or over the edge of?) the boundary where public health infringes on the rights of individuals to purchase medication that will help them take care of themselves … regardless of their age.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vyckie D. Garrison, Pursuit of Harpyness. Pursuit of Harpyness said: off-the-cuff rant: I need an ID to buy cough medicine? http://bit.ly/f7HE95 [...]
When i worked at a supermarket in montana, the cash registers would actually lock if somebody tried to buy more than three bottles of cough syrup at once. We were always told expressly that it wasn’t about sough syrup abuse, but about meth, which you can use cough syrup to make.
Is it stupid? yeah. but my mom always used it as an excuse to give us the natural stuff – ginger syrup – nature’s cough suppressant and decongestant. seriously, worked 99% of the time.
You’re not wrong. It’s stupid.
Even if you live with a parent and even if they haven’t gone a trip, teenagers often have responsibilities in the home especially if the parents work odd shifts. Older teenagers often do grocery shopping or look after younger siblings – the whole family could be relying on them to be able to make the purchase.
In my experience (Canadian), controls on cough medicine are based on it being used to make meth (as are a number of other over-the-counter substances). It’s all about how much you are buying, not how old you are. And if you are buying in quantity, the ID is not to check your age, it’s to track your identity so you can be checked up on in case you are making meth.
People do abuse prescription and over the counter medications, but they’re on crack (ha!) if they think that only children and teens are doing it.
For what it’s worth, there are tablet-type things that perform the same functions as cough syrup (cough suppressant/expectorant and inducing drowsiness) but that you can’t get high off of. I don’t know if there’s a significant price difference but in my experience they work just as well.
I knew people in undergrad who would get high off Robitussin, and this was a campus where it was exceptionally easy to get real drugs without any threat whatsoever of disciplinary actions. So I don’t think this is an overblown “think of the children!” claim (according to my anecdata, anyway). And 10 bottles is way more than you need (I never did it so I don’t know the exact amount people take, although I think that for most people it’s around the size of one of the little bottles).
I agree with you that it’s kind of absurd, but mostly because these kind of prevention efforts are like playing whack-a-mole — there’s going to be something else that teenagers can consume improperly to get high next week, too. Making CVS check IDs is not a substitute for parenting.
1) Baraquiel is right: the tablets, like Mucinex DM et. al. work just as well as syrups to stop a cough, and no ID is needed. They do ID for other cold medicine tablets which contain pseudoephedrine because those can be used to make meth.
2) Teenagers still need to be careful what kinds of medicines they take, and they are still minors when it comes to making their own health decisions. Taking cough syrup when you have extremely congested lungs can actually lead to pneumonia– you need to cough to get the gunk out of your lungs.
The thing is, the health risks for people taking cold medication (or abusing it) are the same for adults and teenagers — people over the age of 18 can get high on cough syrup, and they also need to be careful about not taking so much that they compromise their health. It’s about proper use of the medication, not the medication itself. Which, granted, is the same deal with alcohol consumption. But with cough medicine, you can argue that there’s a positive health reason for buying a bottle of medication. And that young people may need to buy it at a time and place where there are no people over the age of 18 to purchase it for them.
I’d actually make similar arguments about other substances … but this isn’t really a thread about the legalization and/or age restrictions on things like wine or pot.
The kids who are going to abuse the stuff are going to find a way to do it regardless while young people who need the medication have one more hurdle to cross to actually getting what they need to care for themselves.
So…here’s a brief and unsolicited tutorial on the deal with OTC cold/cough medicines:
The problematic ingredient in OTC cough syrup is dextromethorphan, which, in high doses (i.e. swigging a bottle or two) can cause hallucinations and blackout, sometimes fatal. Dextro is similar to the tranquilizer Special K and the hallucinogen PCP. It’s bad stuff in the wrong hands. If you are an addict in recovery, you are specifically warned away from it—I once spent the better part of an afternoon at a CVS shopping for a relative’s cough syrup to ensure she didn’t buy any with dextro or alcohol in it (not an easy task, btw).
The issue with cold medicines like Dimetapp and Sudafed is that they’re used to make crystal meth. The cold tablets are the ones you cook meth with, though, not the syrup. Some cough syrups contain pseudeophedrine as well as dextro too, and if you’re abusing one that has both dextro and pseudo in it, you will be one freaked-out, speedy mofo until you collapse.
Kids today will “robo-trip” on cough syrup for a cheap high—this is a pretty well-documented problem. So the safeguards are in place for a reason, and while they’re imperfect and inconvenient, I can understand why they exist.
My friend was carded once when he tried to buy a bottle opener. He needed it for a Coke with an old-fashioned cap.
Oh, and at the convenience store I work at, they told us to card anyone that bought a pack of beer pong balls. Which were exactly like ping pong balls, except for a ‘BP’ label. So if, say, drunken Candyland became all the rage, would they start carding for that game, too?
The first time I ever bought spray paint for a class art project I was 17, so the purchase was a no go (had to call my dad to buy it for me). All I could think was, “Spray paint was invented for uses other than huffing and tagging, and teens are not alone in these abuses, so SERIOUSLY? GIVE ME MY PAINT!!!” With the cough syrup it’s even dumber, because properly informed teens are perfectly capable of making their own medical decisions.
Isn’t this the same kind of crap ageist thinking that gives us parental consent abortion legislation?
@anna – “people over the age of 18 can get high on cough syrup”
Sure, that’s true, but most drugs do have age/income/etc. profiles of their common users. It’s not that I disagree with your last-paragraph point, because I absolutely do, but getting high on cough syrup is a predominantly teenage activity. It’s worth noting that the people I was talking about before were freshman and not very well-connected freshman at that. By the time someone’s in their 20s, if they’re interested, they can probably get the knowledge and money necessary to procure any number of much harder things than cough syrup, which isn’t necessarily true for teenagers.
Isn’t this the same kind of crap ageist thinking that gives us parental consent abortion legislation?
I don’t think so. This is about putting intoxicants out of the reach of kids who might poison themselves with it in order to get a cheap high. To my mind, it’s more similar to having an age limit on purchasing alcohol.
Children are not entitled to all the same rights and privileges as adults, and it’s reasonable to put safeguards in place for their protection and to respond to a public health problem like teenage abuse of OTC medication.
It’s interesting that this should come up today because I while I was out at the tot lot with my son today I picked up (to bring home and recycle) several empty bottles of this stuff that were lying around the bench. So yeah, obviously the kids are shoplifting it but clearly there does need to be an attempt to control it.
@anna: You are so right. Meth manufacturers probably aren’t going to stand around in line to sign a form allowing them to buy 2 bottles of cough medicine or packs of Sudafed. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to be inconvenienced. Asinine.
I did all the huge family grocery shopping from the time I got my driver’s license at 16yo. My parents were too busy working to do it. I know at times I had to buy cold medicine.
In the past 10 yrs I have had to buy A LOT of cold medicine because with young kids and on meds that make me more prone to infections, I was sick A LOT. It really ticked me off when I had 2 sick kids with me, and wanted to buy 3 boxes of adult multi-symptom cold relief gels to last 5+ days, but could only buy 2, necessitating another trip, while I was even sicker, to do the same things all over again. And expose everyone to germs while I did it.
And the cold meds were necessary to keep me clear enough so I didn’t get a secondary infection, so it wasn’t an optional thing. So I had to start ‘stocking up’ on cold meds at every shopping trip, which was stupid, because then some years I didn’t need them all. But I couldn’t take the chance that I couldn’t get them when I needed them.
So Becky, you think it’s okay to prevent anyone under 18 or 21 from buying these medications?
@MM: Ideally, I’d rather see a situation where they were still OTC but behind the counter and you had to ask a pharmacist for them and be counseled on how to use them. Whenever I’ve bought ibuprofen with codeine in the UK (or Claritin in the UK before it became OTC) that was the drill. That scenario helps deter people from buying OTC meds in order to abuse them, although it’s obviously not perfect.
But no, I don’t find it ageist or objectionable to prevent kids from buying OTC meds that are potentially dangerous and easily abused, any more than I find it objectionable for some meds to be by prescription only, or ageist for alcohol to be sold only to adults.
It’s also worth pointing out in this thread that one can buy cold medicines that don’t contain dextromethorphan or pseudoephedrine, so it’s not as though teens are being blocked from buying ALL cold remedies. They are not being left to suffer unmedicated.
Some states are in the process of making cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine a prescription medication to stop the production of meth. (IIRC, Washington or Oregon has done so quite successfully)
Yes, I sympathize with the people who are inconvienced by these rules. However, the children whose parents cook meth, as well as the law enforcement officials who bust them, are exposed to real danger and often permenant health consequences due to the byproducts of meth production found in these homes. (Not to mention the effects of meth itself on its users)
So no, I don’t have a problem with these sorts of mediciation restrictions when the Greater Harm is to do nothing and Other Options (as Becky mentioned) are available.
But more on topic, if we make it illegal for teens to buy alcohol and tobacco until they reach the age of consent, why not other drugs of abuse? If you regulate some but not all, what is the logic of that?
16 year olds are still developing neurologically and these sorts of poisons cause more lasting damage when taking during the maturation of the brain than say, at 25. They’re never good, but there are lesser evils here.
this kind of thing rubs me the wrong way too, but if it works, i’m for it.
my partner (& pretty much everybody else in his command) used to abuse cough syrups in the military… specifically because they can’t/don’t test for dxm (& they needed something to replace coke, which could only be used on 3 day weekends).
i asked him about it, and he said that if the military had started testing for dxm, then he would have just started drinking more, or found something else to fuck him up enough to numb out the military & all the (horrible) experiences he had.
i think it’s semi fair to say that many people in shitty situations will find something else to abuse. so maybe we need to start addressing WHY people abuse drugs & what we can do to remedy that desire… restrictive legislation hasn’t really ever been very successful, has it?
(i clearly cannot pick a side.)
Yeah, I’m an Oregonian for whom only real pseudophedrine has ever worked as a decongestant. When sudafed went prescription it was inconvenient and I bitched about it. I don’t even have a GP – I have to get my OB to write me a prescription for sudafed. And having an OB is a privilege – I can’t imagine going to the free clinic and trying to convince the overworked suspicious doctors that other decongestants really don’t work.
But. But meth really was a huge problem. I can’t even begin to describe how awful it was in so much of Springfield and the enormity of the problem and how it seemed like nothing the police or the community did made a difference. And the prescription sudafed thing? Even though sudafed is a legal and legitimate medication that had always been OTC? Getting it behind the counter worked. Meth is still a problem of course. And maybe other things that happened at the same time also helped. But it’s not the epidemic with no end in sight that it was six years ago. And, as someone who lives here, that’s pretty hard to argue with.
For the most part, I’m pro-legalization. But it’s hard to justify meth or anything that makes making or getting meth easier.
i think it’s semi fair to say that many people in shitty situations will find i think it’s i think it’s semi fair to say that many people in shitty situations will find something else to abuse. so maybe we need to start addressing WHY people abuse drugs & what we can do to remedy that desire…
Yes, absolutely. We need social policies that do that…which can include making legal substances harder to obtain. Simply saying “people will always find something to abuse” may be true in some situations, but I don’t think it’s a valid justification to do nothing. Because it’s also a given that some people will always be in shitty situations where they want to abuse drugs, and that some people are genetically and environmentally predisposed to be addicts. Those people often will not seek out help on their own and cannot control their impulse to use—and I think society has a responsibility to keep the drugs out of their hands as a matter of public health and safety.
To my mind, either a drug is OTC or it’s not. The weird thing is to say “this medication is safe enough to be over the counter, but we’re not letting anyone under the age of eighteen buy it.” I also have problems with making something prescription-only not because of some inherent issue with the drug as a medication, but because some people are abusing it in ways it was not intended to be used. Or because some people fear teenagers getting ahold of it (Plan B anyone?). People abuse lots of safe, legal substances (including nourishing food and exercise) and we don’t make everyone else get prescriptions for them because of that.
@Pharm Grad Student: “if we make it illegal for teens to buy alcohol and tobacco until they reach the age of consent, why not other drugs of abuse?”
I actually see some of those laws as troublesome as well. There’s a big difference between buying a bottle of table wine for a family dinner and buying half a dozen keggers for a frat party. I had trouble doing family grocery shopping as a teen and in my early twenties because I couldn’t purchase a bottle of wine for cooking or whatever — sometimes even after I turned 21 but had my underage siblings with me while I was running errands.
I just don’t see how making things that are mostly safe if used correctly illegal for purchase by teenagers or making medications that have been OTC and are by-and-large safe when used, not abused, extremely difficult to procure is moving toward solving the actual problem.
I immediately jumped to the Plan B analogy as well. If a drug is safe in its intended usage and dosage, and is available over the counter, it is ageist to put unnecessary roadblocks in the way of only one age group.
The people who argued that Plan B would be abused by teens were worried about all the slutty girls having tons of unprotected sex.
The people arguing that certain cold medicines should also be restricted by age are worried about meth labs and kids getting a cheap high.
I may be naive, but I have to think that the instances of underage people needing these drugs for legitimate, responsible use outweighs the drug abusers. The moral panic surrounding contraceptives and cough medicine* is focused the strongest on underage people. It’s an example of paternalism, and OMG-won’t-someone-think-of-the-CHILDREN!, and yes, I believe it is ageist.
(*and I in no way believe these are the only two examples)
@AmandaS – to me the two situations are different because teenage girls not using condoms or the pill and instead repeatedly taking Plan B is still a legitimate use of the medication, even if it’s irresponsible to use it that often, whereas getting high off cough syrup is an illegitimate use of the medication. The comparable situation would be if teenagers were repeatedly infecting each other with a rhinovirus, on purpose, and for fun. In that case, even though contracting a cold for amusement is kind of idiotic, it’s still better for someone to have the proper medication than not.
Moreover — and I have no stats to back this up, just my observations and suppositions — teenage girls relying on Plan B as their primary birth control is, it seems to me, an overblown and unrealistic fear, whereas teenagers getting high off cough syrup is really not that uncommon. I’m still unclear as to why carding for cough *syrup* but having no restrictions for cough *tablets* is an unreasonable compromise.
I don’t think the Plan B analogy works either. No one is getting high and injuring themselves and others by taking Plan B. And the concern-trolling about Plan B causing sluttiness has never been backed by any hard data, whereas teens abusing cough syrup is a legitimate public health concern backed by plenty of evidence from both the medical and law enforcement communities. I think the analogy conflates two things that are not actually that similar at all.
It’s worth remembering that these policies about OTC drugs were in response to serious public health problems, not just concern-trolling. I think Avogadro’s comment upthread does a good job of explaining why the restrictions are important and effective.
I’m still unclear as to why carding for cough *syrup* but having no restrictions for cough *tablets* is an unreasonable compromise.
It’s possible to see this as a compromise, yes, but I’d argue that it’s still ageist as a compromise. It’s not saying “these drugs are dangerous enough that we’re going to sell them by prescription only.” It’s saying, “teenagers by virtue of their age are not to be trusted with medication that is safe to sell OTC.”
Yes, they have other options. But they have fewer options than adults over the age of 18 because of their age. That’s age-based discrimination. Perhaps as a society we decide it’s worthwhile to discriminate that way. In some cases we do (e.g. driver’s licenses). But that doesn’t make it less discriminatory.
Just because there are alternatives to cough syrup and those alternatives work just as well or better for some people doesn’t mean that they work as well or better for all folks. I don’t think the fact alternatives are available makes the fact that some OTC medications aren’t available to teens less of an issue.
“teenagers by virtue of their age are not to be trusted with medication that is safe to sell OTC.”
Personally, I am totally in agreement with that. Teens by virtue of their age are not to be trusted with lots of things that adults are to be trusted with.
I don’t think the fact alternatives are available makes the fact that some OTC medications aren’t available to teens less of an issue.
No one’s saying these kids can’t take those meds—they are available to teens whose parents oversee their purchase and use, similar to how teens can only get prescription meds if their parents fill the prescription, or only use bank cards from an account opened and authorized by their parents or only drive cars insured by their parents.
Teens in our society should have adult supervision—some more than others, obvs—and adults have an obligation to parent their children, especially when they’re sick. If I were a parent, I would not want my child buying and taking cough syrup with dextro or cold medicine with pseudo without my knowing about it and being able to ensure they’re taking the right dose. I know plenty of adults who get the dosage wrong on OTC meds out of sheer inattention or ignorance—supervising your kids’ medication is your job as parent.
@Anna: oh, and to answer your question about cough syrup vs. cough tabs, I strongly suspect the answer is because the syrup is what’s being abused, so that’s what the law targets. My guess is that teens don’t like to swallow a handful of dry tablets, hence choosing the syrup. But I do know of some tablets, like Corricidin-C, that are also not sold to teens in some places(CCC is an especially potent blend of dextro and pseudo).
“That’s age-based discrimination.”
Well, sort of. What it is is discrimination based on the average ability of a certain group to make decisions that take likely consequences into account, and this group is defined by age. There are very significant differences in neurological development between someone who’s 16 and someone who’s 26, and I think it would be irresponsible of policy-makers not to take those differences into account. 18 is a relatively arbitrary number to choose, I’ll grant, but the basic distinction is a sound one and although the number 18 was chosen before the science was around to prove the existence of such a transition, we now have that data, and prove it it does. I don’t think that saying “teenagers, by virtue of their state of neurological development, are not to be trusted with a medication that is safe to sell OTC” is unreasonable because every medication sold OTC is considered safe to sell OTC based on the assumption that the people buying it are overwhelmingly more likely to follow the directions on the label than to try to abuse it. In the special case of teenagers and cough syrup, that assumption is not true.
@baraqiel, I don’t know enough about the current state of research vis a vis age-based differences to argue the validity of your point that teenagers brains work differently. But I’ll say that I’m reflexively skeptical of science that appears to support differential treatment based on supposed brain function, since I’ve seen how really shitty science has been used to support arguments in favor of sex-based discrimination (and even, not terribly long ago, race-based discrimination).
I realize that overall I’m in the minority when it comes to the level of responsibility I think teenagers as a class are able to handle. While I’d agree that there are unquestionably some neurological developments still underway for adolescents, I also believe that a lot of the behavior we attribute to physical and mental development in teens is actually culturally overdetermined. We’ve constructed the irresponsible teenager in our society, to a large extent. And I’m suspicious of laws that buy into that stereotype just like I’m suspicious of laws that buy into stereotypes concerning gender.
“No one’s saying these kids can’t take those meds—they are available to teens whose parents oversee their purchase and use, similar to how teens can only get prescription meds if their parents fill the prescription,”
What about the kids who don’t live with their folks? Who fled abusive families, live on the street or got themselves legally emancipated? What are they supposed to do? Suffer?
Before you say that these are rare occurences, they really aren’t. Nor are kids who still live with their folks, but their parents won’t buy them cold medicine because “they’re just faking to get high,” regardless of temp, nose stuffiness or other symptoms.
In Seattle all the regulations have done is make meth-makers spend a lot of gas or bus-fare driving from pharmacy to pharmacy with fake IDs.
@geekgirls: What about the kids who don’t live with their folks? Who fled abusive families, live on the street or got themselves legally emancipated? What are they supposed to do? Suffer?
SRSLY? Those kids have far greater problems that our society and policy makers should be addressing than whether they can buy a bottle of Robotussin. There’s many, many ways street kids or kids who’ve run away from home are suffering. Being unable to buy certain types of cold medicine is not even in the top ten thousand of them.
But to answer your question: those kids would either have to get an adult to buy them those cold medicines—doesn’t have to be a parent, after all, and teens frequently get people of legal age to buy them things like alcohol and cigarettes—or they could buy one of the many OTC cold medicines that doesn’t contain pseudoephedrine or dextromethorphan.
This is a tough one for me, because I tend to agree that teenagers are capable in many instances of making adult decisions, but the science regarding neurological development during these years is rather consistent in its findings that neurological development is ongoing until the mid-twenties. Thus I come to the point of “what is the greatest harm?” The earlier drugs are abused, the more likely the person is to abuse drugs throughout life and find the addiction difficult to break. Still, making things “illegal” is also part of the draw for teens rebelling against social normals.
I hate to punish all teens because some teens make poor decisions. Still, without good parenting even the smartest teens can be found making poor choices out of ignorance of the consequences (or their probable long-term effects). I’d hate to further disadvantage teens with inattentive/uneducated/unaware parents by legalizing or failing to prevent access to substances known to be abused with such negative consequences.
I just wish it were easier to protect those among us who don’t truly understand the consequences of their behavior without unjustly discriminating against those who do.
Eh, teens could buy the stuff that doesn’t have the pseudoephedrine or the dextro, but those are two things that actually work to alleviate cough symptoms. (This was after an interesting conversation with my pharmacist sister; I was under the impression that cough syrup was just candy for sick people.)
So yes, it’s a crapshoot. Either it’s an example of poor risk-assessment or a situation where the few must suffer etc. I suppose what needs to be done, if it hasn’t already, is a serious look at the statistics to determine whether carding is an over-reaction or just a stop-gap. I guess you could also say it’s a societal issue, a side-effect of living in very large groups, where people do not know each other as individuals and so must resort to profiling in order to curb (or encourage) certain behaviours.
At any rate, I’ve enjoyed reading this thread.
My son is almost 18, he is married, has a baby on the way, supports himself, has a car, has a job and on the way home from work, he needed to buy some Dayquil/Nyquil tablets. Nope. Not in the state of Washington. Now he has to go get his mother-in-law to go out and get him some cold medicine. Pretty ridiculous.
I went to pick up medicine for my husband and I who are both sick. I did NOT try to buy the stuff you have to sign for at the pharmacy (pseudophedrine). I bought Nyquil – and have to be 18. Ok… Then I also went and bought Comtrex – it too was on the shelf. Not only do you have to be 18, they scan the back of your license (Indiana) to keep a record and make sure you don’t buy too much.
So, what is the difference between what is on the shelf and available to everyone to take to the checkout and what is behind the pharmacists desk that they have to log into the computer? Either way they are tracking your purchases, keeping your name, making sure you only buy one box….
At this point, I don’t know what medicine I CAN buy that isn’t “bad” enough to be made into meth. It sure seems like ANYTHING can be made into meth – are they going to start carding for batteries too?
I guess I just don’t understand the mentality that EVERYONE is suspected of making meth because they buy cold medicine. If I WAS making meth, do they really think I would walk into the store (with an ID), buy one box, pay real money, and be on my way? More and more we are hearing of robberies of these stores for a reason. If they steal it (even at gun point) there is no paper trail – a survalence video yes, but they sure don’t check their IDs…
My friend, who’s 25-years-old, was just denied buying Mucinex at Stop and Shop because apparently you have to be over 30. 30!? Seriously? I’m 25 as well and I live over 3,000 from my parents in my own house. What if I got sick? It’s insane.
Im glad I found this!
I had a similar experience, only way worse. I’m a nurse. I’m 23 years old. My boyfriend, who I live with, became sick. He had a fever/chills/body aches/sore throat/runny nose/cough/ ect. This all started on a Thursday a week or 2 ago. We went to Rite Aide (a local pharmacy) to pick up some meds to help him get through work on Friday. I purchased a bottle of Tylenol Dayquil to get him through the day and a bottle of Tylenol Nightquil (cool burst) to get him through the night. It helped. He ended up using up the dayquil all weekend, which managed his symptoms. On monday, he called out of work and made an appointment with his doctor. At this point, he had very little Dayquil left… So on my way home from work on Monday evening, I stopped at Rite Aide to grab him some more. I went to the counter to purchase it, and the cashier took my ID. Then, the cash register started beeping obnoxiously and he said he couldn’t sell it to me because I had already purchased 2 bottles last week. I was furious! I went off on a rampage that this wasn’t for me and my SICK boyfriend needed it. The cashier then told me that the government is tracking how often people are buying cough medicine! He made me feel like a criminal! So, I then said “well what if I catch whatever my boyfriend has or whatever my patients have?” he said “well then you better send your boyfriend in to buy your cough medicine, because we wont sell it to you.”
HOW REDICULOUS IS THAT!!!!!
Im a seventeen year old with divorced parents and four younger siblings. i do a lot of shopping and my parents work later so i take care of myself and my siblings. my parents have taught me how to responsibly use medicine and how to read packages. i have been giving myself medicine since i was ten. i go to the doctor on my own and even pick up prescriptions on my own. i am very irritated with this law because its inconvenient for me and my family. usually stores are closed by the time my parents get home so if there isn’t medicine in the house when im sick then i may have to wait longer to get any. sometimes this makes it impossible to get through school when im sick. I also give my younger siblings medicine when there sick. if my little brother is running a fever and needs tylenol to bring it down what am i suppose to do? i know some methods to bring down fevers but they don’t always work. And in my experience illegal drugs are more popular among my pes than over the counter medicines. it is still easy to get illegal substances in highschools. I think this is a very stupid law.
Its interesting, I (16), can go to CVS alone and get a prescription of Vicodin for post surgery pain, but god forbid I have a cough…
Just like the rest of you i went to my local pharmacy for cough medicine.
It is clear to anyone looking at me that I am a senior citizen, but the woman insisted for my ID. Not only did she look at it closely, she also entered it into the data base.
Needless to say i was furious, and thought, another marketing gimmick!
Should old people be treated like criminals?
What’s happening in America?
I just had this experience yesterday and came online to find out why they requested my ID. Interesting to find this was not new and a frustrating experience for others.
I must say, the fact that they scanned rather than just looked at it (as I have seen them do for cigarettes and alcohol) lead me to believe my info is being stored somewhere and I am now- if only temporarily- under surveillance for drug activity.
If in fact I am buying the medicine to create meth, why wouldn’t I buy it in bulk from some distributor that doesn’t give a crap? I’m buying one bottle of Mucinex and now, as usual, I get the criminal treatment while some real criminal is off somewhere blowing up a lab or something.
Had I not been nearly choking to death on mucus balls the size of almonds I would have left without it. Imagine my disappointment to see a generic brand of the stuff at my next stop, a dollar store where I dropped in to stock on on cheap Kleenex. I purchased it without issue, used it and am on the road to recovery.
Now I just have to figure out how to return the other unopened bottle back to Target wtihout really setting off some sort of alert.
I would like to chirp in on my experience….. I am 17, literally a half a month shy of 18. I am raised by a a single parent who happened to be away with my older sister (my only other sibling over 18) to take her to college
my younger brother had trouble sleeping last night because of a cough, so today I went to buy some cough syrup to help him. I went to walgreens who promptly rejected me due to the whole not-being-3-weeks-older thing. yeah, crazy
walking out I noticed two kids who went to my high school who werent exactly valedictorians. I paid them 5 bucks to shoplift me some cough medicine
so, moral of the story, this law is absolutely retarded and prevents those who wouldnt shoplift (like me) from getting it for legit purposes, but the kind of people who do abuse it also tend to be those who shoplift. do the math
I am an 18 year old freshman in college, living away from home and needed cold medicine. I walked to CVS where I attempted to purchase it only to be told that I am not old enough. Since I was unable to purchase my own medicine at 18 years old, I asked my friends who happily told me I could take whatever I needed from what they had. Needless to say I felt bad taking any at all so I’m saving it for before my math test tomorrow. RIDICULOUS.
I know this was a year ago but I experienced this and now you have to be 21 to buy in California. I couldn’t buy medicine for my younger sister today. My mom and Dad work odd shifts so I had to go purchase the medicine. I just turned 18 and I couldn’t buy it cause I’m not 21. Which I find very stupid to be honest. I went to Walmart, Target, and Costco for medicine and each said I had to be 21. I understand the concern of abuse of drugs in under age teens and I agree to a certain point. I’m just so mad that they raised it to 21.