The professional information on drugs.com does not suggest such a limitation when used under the supervision of a healthcare provider. It's most likely there because some common causes of congestion that don't clear up in a week can be more medically significant than the common cold. OTC pain relievers say not to use for more than 10 days, also because the underlying cause may require treatment.

Regardless, people often do use OTC drugs in ways that might not be advisable, but definitely aren't recreational (leaving aside the issue of whether criminalizing recreational drug use is a good idea).

Can we all just agree that because the ban on bulk sudafed purchases has nothing to do with drug safety, there's no public policy conclusion we can draw one way or the other from sudafed's counterindications? I can see this thread going back and force on blood pressure and stroke stuff and I think we probably all agree that if this was the only issue, pseudoephedrine would be back on the shelves.

If a family could reasonably anticipate being arrested or searched for consuming sudafed regularly for several weeks (bad allergies, sinus cold, whatever), I stipulate that's significant and problematic. What I'm contending is that in 2019, that's so unlikely to happen as to be implausible.

Yes, it's clearly about meth. I just wanted to make clear that the fact that it says not to take it for more than 7 days doesn't mean people won't, and I don't think it's very controversial that people shouldn't be prosecuted for it.

I don't know how likely prosecution is in 2019. There have been a few under much more restrictive state laws making pseudoephedrine prescription-only and criminalizing traveling out of state to obtain it, but that's not the original issue we were discussing.

It's probably pretty unlikely under Federal law, but it took several posts back and forth on HN along with a PACER lookup for us to reach that conclusion explains fairly well why many people are uncomfortable with having their purchases tracked in this manner.

That's a fair point. I concede: I understand why it makes some people nervous.