Carded for Cough Syrup: Good Intentions Do Not Good Legislation Make

I went to the store with my family this evening. It was a standard trip with a run of the mill goal in mind. We had to purchase some groceries and some children's cough medicine. My children each have nasty coughs right now, but are otherwise the picture of health. Per the instructions of the pediatricians we've seen in the past, cough medicine is not administered during the day unless my children are utterly miserable, but rather it is given at night if their coughing is keeping them from sleeping. My husband and I both thought it would be an uneventful and quick errand.

Once we retrieved our purchases and got to the checkout stand a rather disturbing thing happened. The cashier rang up the children's Robitussin and then promptly asked me for my birth date. I was taken aback, but rattled of the month day and year that I was born. She then asked me to see my photo i.d. I thought, "Hold the phone! I'm being carded? For children's cough medicine?!" According to the cashier it is becoming mandatory to show photo i.d. when purchasing children's cold medicine. So into the database went my drivers license number, I can only assume to track how much cold medicine I'm purchasing and how often.

It was difficult enough when they banned the active ingredients found in the old Tylenol Flu. Many adults will still complain that the new remedies are nowhere near as effective. For me personally, I figured I could adapt. Their reasoning was to keep those people out there that decided to take something helpful and make it into something harmful from doing so. I could live with that. Though the debate still rages on about whether or not the banning of medicines containing pseudoephedrine has really had the hard hitting effect they hoped it would on the home made methamphetamine labs that have been and continue to be such a problem in many parts of the United States.