Lockdown in the nasal decongestant aisle.
“Don’t break bad, now,” the 30-something pharmacist at my local Walgreens said to me after handing me a 12-dose box of Claritin-D. He had determined, after a mini-background check, that I was not a meth cooker.
All this ado, according to said pharmacist, is a reaction to the popularity and the press surrounding the AMC television series, “Breaking Bad,” about a down-on-all-luck chemistry teacher who crosses the line to methamphetamine (meth) kingpin.
It’s because of the D-part in Claritin-D, which stands for psuedoephedrine, a component of methamphetamine, which, when broken down, cooked, and then snorted or smoked (or when downing a whole 12-dose box of Claritin-D at once), produces a brain-stimulating, euphoric rush that will probably help you forget that you have a runny nose.
So Claritin-D, and all decongestants with psuedoephedrine are no longer over-the-counter, and are illegal to buy if you are under 18, or if you are over 18, and do not have a valid drivers license.
This system required me to take a card from the shelf, hand it over to the pharmacist behind the counter, and wait for the rundown on my background before I was handed the goods.
Claritin has been a newsmaker before. It wasn’t that long ago – 2002 – that Claritin won approval to be sold over the counter without a prescription. The decided culprit then was not an ingredient (no psuedoephedrine then, just loratadine), but instead, a cocktail of questionable conduct – the lengthy and arcane F.D.A. approval-process, the effectiveness and the cost of the newly-available Claritin, and the purported greed of Schering-Plough- the pharmaceutical company that developed Claritin.
So I’m all for consumer safety; awareness. We all need to be watchdogs. But my encounter with this latest keep-the-goods-from-the-bad-guys, and keep-the-public-safe tactic seems a bit short-sighted, certainly not foolproof, and just plain silly. I can confirm the pharmacy’s findings that I am not a meth cooker. But how do they know, given that I wasn’t buying Claritin-D for myself, but picking it up for someone else (the pharmacist didn’t ask), that I’m not a mule? Or a huckleberry.
The Write Side of 59 
WOW WHAT A BIZARRE STORY. That is crazy, you can’t buy a decongestant over the counter. What’s this world come too. Wonder if it’s just Walgreens because they’re under fire I hear about seeing narcotics (that were false) according to a local news paper article in VA.
I don’t even need to take it, but I’m the only one who remembers to buy it for my husband & daughter who do have seasonal allergies. It’s like a part-time job to remember when & where I bought it last time. Some stores (Harmon Drugs) only use a paper form to fill out your info. so I figure they can’t trace me online too quickly & therefore I’m safe to purchase it more frequently then every 15 days. But on some data base somewhere, my name is popping up quite frequently all through the year as I stockpile it, even when they are not needing it, in order to always have it at the ready.On some rare occasions, Eric might remember to stop & purchase it himself. I stash the $3 off coupons in his wallet as a reminder. Which is another thing….there’s always a $3 coupon in the box of Claritin D. Why don’t they just lower the price $3 and save the paper??!! Geesh! Well Lois, apparently your post has hit a nerve with me. LOL! I hope this site is secure. But for the record…I also am not a meth cooker! Just a conscientious wife & mother.