A law that’s not a law

Once upon a time, a person could legally buy a somewhat effective non-prescription medication to treat nasal or lung congestion.

Usually, this med would have been pseudoephedrine. It was a substance that may have had some small impact on a stuffy nose or phlegm in the breathing apparatus. I say it may have had an impact: There’s the possibility it was only a placebo effect.

Suddenly, something odd happened to pseudoephedrine. It became pseudo-legal.

The story was that bad guys use one of the ingredients in pseudo to make whatever street drug it is. Enter, the law that’s not a law.

One ludicrous idea has just given birth to another ludicrous idea. It’s just stupid. The bad guys don’t make drugs out of little pills they buy or steal from a pharmacy.

No. The bad guys make the bad drug from buckets of chemicals that come into the country from somewhere in the south.

Criminals just aren’t content with small-time operations, like making drugs out of little tiny pills that come in impossible plastic bubble packages. That’s why they’re classified as criminals. They figure out how to go big with little effort.

Even if they steal a case of packages of 24 Dristan tablets, they’re small time. The active ingredient is minute. And the labor required to take all the little pills out of the blister packs – think of the hours a bad guy would spend doing this. Might as well get a job.

But this myth became so popular that the powers-that-be felt compelled to do something. So did they take the obvious path and make pseudo a prescription drug?

No. They made pseudo the first pseudo-legal drug.

Here is the second phase of a ludicrous endeavor: To buy pseudo these days, the consumer takes a card from the display rack, presents the card to the pharmacist, who requires a signature on a list on a clipboard, then sells the pseudo to the consumer.

We have gone from the sublime to the asinine.

Is this really prevention? How does this intervene with the criminal’s intent? It does not.

Could not doctors give patients prescriptions for medication that would relieve symptoms of colds or congestion?

They could, but that would “legitimize” pseudo, giving it credibility as a substance of relief. To some degree, pseudo was always snake oil anyway, so there was a problem.

Somehow the “establishment” had to establish “control” of a substance that really didn’t need to be controlled.

Myself, I simply had to find another method of relief for the occasional cold or stuffy nose. I refused to participate in the ludicrous “Sign Here” ritual. I eat more citrus and use a saline nasal spray. Goodbye pseudo, you were politically incorrect anyway, so goodbye forever.

Here’s a fun hint, though, if you do still buy pseudo. Spy on your neighbors! If you’re sneaky, you can find out who bought pseudo ahead of you, just by quickly perusing the names on the clipboard list.

So much for “keep back for privacy” in the pharmacy line.

Linear thinking

The good Lord gifted us with remarkable peripheral vision.

When you think about it, peripheral vision doesn’t just mean side-to-side. It is hemispherical.

But because of our culture, our peripheral vision has fallen from use.

Here’s what happens. Most of us drive. When we drive, we look through a “windshield,” which closely resembles a television or movie screen.

Most of us watch television. It requires only a narrow field of vision. We simply drive and watch, and peripheral vision is lost.

But not mine. I still have almost 180 degree vision from side to side, and slightly less than that vertically, because of interference from my cap and my beard.

Why am I so fortunate? 1. Art classes. 2. Motorcycle riding.

In art classes, I was taught the powers of observation. The instructors pointed to areas of light and dark, areas of distance and proximity – and areas on the perimeter. Any painting or drawing has to have perimeters.

I actually listened to the instructors, and I learned from them. (Did you read that up and heaven, Mom and Dad? College really did pay off!)

In motorcycling publications, one often reads about the “freedom” felt by the rider and even a passenger while riding a bike.

What is that freedom, really? I think it is the lack of restrictions on the peripheral vision – side-to-side, top to bottom. I see a hawk overhead. I see the shadow of a cloud on Elk Mountain. I see a deer, threatening to leap out, off to one side. I see everything around me.

You can watch the television or the windshield if you like. For myself, I’m ever so grateful for the peripherals. This helps me with “the big picture.”

Next time you go past my business building, look up. See me up there on the roof? Look up. Look down. Look all around. Enjoy the peripherals.

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Word of the week: Misanthrope. It’s from the Greek “misanthropos,” or hating mankind. It’s meaning in English is the same – a person who hates or distrusts all people. That is to say, I am not prejudiced, I am a misanthrope.