Report: PSE sales plummet in Washington, Mo., as Rx-only ordinance is enacted
NEW YORK A white donkey painted in black stripes does not a zebra make. In fact, all you really have is a donkey and a whole lot of paint. Something similar could be said here, because a 92% reduction in PSE sales does not correlate with a 92% reduction in the number of meth addicts cruising the streets.
The fact is a 92% reduction in PSE sales doesn’t add up to much of anything positive.
What you are more likely to have with a 92% reduction in PSE sales is considerably more legitimate consumers suffering from colds than legitimate meth addicts suffering from withdrawal. You’ll certainly have a 92% reduction in cough-cold revenue that pharmacies in today’s economy need more than ever, especially now just as the H1N1-influenced cold-and-flu season kicks off in earnest. And with that, you will also have a 92% reduction in the tax revenue collected from the sale of these medicines.
On the flip side, you might have something close to a 92% increase in the number of local employees utilizing sick days, seeing as how they’re now more likely to suffer from their cold symptoms than trek to the local doctor’s office for a PSE prescription.
Yet, even as local Missouri municipalities like Washington and Union attempt to throw more black paint on this donkey, 25 miles to the east, where PSE sales are up 8%, local law enforcement there reported they weren’t concerned about any meth addicts relocating to a ready supply of PSE. In fact, the sheriff of St. Louis county suggested to The St. Louis Dispatch that he wasn’t concerned that an 8% lift in PSE sales meant anything more than the fact that the cold and flu season had arrived in the mid-West. He wasn’t concerned, he said, because St. Louis county actually employs an electronic logging system for sales of PSE products. And armed with that system, law enforcement in St. Louis county can identify and round up any alleged meth addicts, a practice that incidentally pulls those meth addicts off the street without impeding access of a legitimate cold medicine to one legitimate cold sufferer.