So for the last week or so I have been suffering from the same cold/flu that everyone seems to be getting.  Today I went to a local Rite Aid store by my work to buy some Sudafed which always seem to help me feel better.  I went to the cold and allergies aisle and what did I find?  Two full rows where Sudafed products should be but they were entirely empty.  They had the placeholders on the shelf where the product should be but they had nothing in stock.  At first I though, “Wow everyone must really be sick right now”, but then I looked closer and they had a little sign posted between every third product or so.  “For the safety of our community all pseudophedrine products have been moved to the photo department.”  At first I thought that was really strange but then I remembered that pseudophedrine was one of the ingredients that is need to make methamphetamine.  No I am not a “meth” expert but even if you have seen TV shows like Law and Order you have seen episodes where the meth cooks would go from store to store buying up the product.  When I went to the photo department counter there next to Kodak and Fiji film was all of the Sudafed products along with the Rite Aid generic versions of products that contained pseudophedrine.  I waited for someone to come and man the counter and when they finally did they just said “Oh you want Sudafed?  You did not have to wait you could have just come around the counter and gotten it yourself.  You can only get two boxes however and cannot buy more than XX tablets.”  I really do not remember how many was the limit.  Personally I do not see this a much of a deterrent.  Thinking about it more I was kind of mad I had to wait at all to buy the product.  When I got back to my office I did a simple query on pseudophedrine and I found many places where cities have past ordnances that implement limits on the number and quantity you can buy on a daily basis.  These were not big cities but small towns in middle America.  It is interesting to think about this being one of the problems in today’s society.  Maybe I keep my head in the ground more than most people and it helps that I have not been sick in awhile but I found it interesting that this is one way my community is being protected, at least at a local Rite Aid drug store.