Its crazy that phenylephrine oral formulations stayed on the market for so long despite literally doing nothing. That's not an exaggeration, it gets broken down in the digestive system. None of it makes it to your blood stream. At all. Even at 4x times the normal max dose. Drug companies have known this for 30 years.
Actual, real, pseudoephedrine works great as a decongestant and they replaced it with a placebo because of fears of meth. But meth is cheap AF. Nobody needs to make it themselves!
It makes sense to restrict access to pure, bulk pseudoephedrine. Like in the range of hundreds of kilos. But nobody making meth out of cold pills is going to be able to compete with cheap, surprisingly pure cartel meth. It's just not possible. And there's no reason for a person to take all the risks associated with running a clandestine lab to make it for themselves when they can just buy it.
So like, why bother restricting access to effective cold meds?
@Expecting_Words
Moral crusade theater.
The belief that any sort of compromise or adaptation, other than toward more violence, is betrayal.
The belief that the believer is good and pure, and their tribe and its allies are the same, and that anyone else is evil and must be converted, destroyed, or both. Certainly not to be engaged and bargained with in good faith.