Active Ingredients

I had a cold.

If I were in the U.S., I would've gone to my trusty medicine cabinet and checked my supply of night-time cold medicine. You know, that poison-green-colored liquid stuff that lets you breathe at night so you can get some sleep? Works wonders for me, and, since I am unaccountably fond of breathing at night, knowing I have a supply of nasty-looking but effective pseudoephedrine makes me feel secure.

On the rare occasion my medicine cabinet disappoints me, I feel secure knowing I can walk into any supermarket, chain drug store, or convenience store on any day of the week anywhere in the country and buy a bottle of the stuff, no prescription required. I'd suspected such might not be the case here, but with very limited luggage space, I couldn't bring the cold medicine with us on the plane. So I put a bottle of it in the car. Yes, that's right, the car we still do not have (I apologize for perseverating on the whole car thing, but it truly is a major inconvenience that we can't seem to wrest it from the greedy hands of the Powers-That-Be).

I woke up on Saturday feeling a cold coming on, and anxiously suspecting that finding and accessing pseudoephedrine, or any other effective decongestant, would be fall somewhere on the scale between "difficult" and "impossible." Here's how this extensively-tested, fine-tuned psychometric tool works. A 0 on the scale ("No-Brainer") would be: widely available (accessible in terms of locations and business hours), relatively inexpensive, and available without a prescription. A 10 on the scale ("Impossible") would be "Forget about legally obtaining this substance in this or any contiguous nation; start looking a
couple of countries away." I'll let you fill in the subtle gradations between 0 and 10 for yourself.

So let's see how the Netherlands stacks up. Widely available decongestants include saline nasal spray, Vicks Vapo-Rub, and chamomile steams. Also, generally speaking, homeopathic and herbal remedies are very accessible. As far as I can tell, most things containing a synthetic compound must be obtained by prescription from a pharmacy. When pharmacies are open, it's generally between 8 am and 6 pm. When they are not open it is a Saturday, a Sunday, a holiday, the pharmacist didn't feel like getting out of bed, or before 8 am or after 6 pm (to be fair, I should add that you can find an "on call" pharmacy for emergencies or go to a hospital pharmacy if you're desperate).

Because of concerns about cardiac safety, The Netherlands removed pseudoephedrine from the market way back in 1989. Some form of pseudoephedrine is legally available in nearby Belgium (I foresee a field trip in my near future), but I have yet to figure out whether a prescription is required.

Turns out what I thought was a cold was just a brief allergic episode, so you don't have to send me emergency shipments of night-time cold reliever immediately. But, since Wijo and I had to visit a pharmacy to fill some other prescriptions, we asked the pharmacy assistant about the availability of decongestants. Her answer, and I quote: "Met werksame ingredienten?" Translation: "With active ingredients?"

Really - that's exactly what she said, with a straight face, in all seriousness. She had no idea why I started laughing hysterically (hint: to prevent myself from saying: "No, you idiot, I'd like a placebo please; just tell me where I can get me some of that kick-ass saline nasal spray")!

Okay, so it's no surprise that countries regulate and dispense pharmaceuticals in different ways, and there are legitimate concerns involved. You're certainly not going to hear me jumping to the FDA's defense anytime soon. I just find it a little ironic that a place scoring  an 8 or 9 for decongestants on the renowned Deb's Drug Availability Scale scores a 1 on that same scale for recreational drugs.

Out of deep concern for the accuracy and completeness of my posts, I feel compelled to research, first-hand, the specifics of recreational drug availability in comparison with those dangerous decongestants your mother warned you about. I'll be back soon - on Monday, if the buzz wears off in time - with some hard-hitting investigative reporting on this very topic.