ephedrine and crystal meth

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epidural man

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I just spent the last 20 minutes on how to make crystal meth.

My question is....how come the tons of pure liquid concentrated ephedrine sitting in every drawer in the OR isn't watched closely?

The stuff is very protected at pharmacies.

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I just rotated at the VA and they treated it like any other narcotic there.

Maybe they're on to something. . .
 
Wonderful! That's all we need: just another piece of bureaucracy. How about just getting proper background checks (the kind the feds do for their own hires) on all the people who work in the OR, and stopping this entire circus with various schedule medications.

There was a time when narcotics were kept on the shelf, like most anesthesia meds, without any special accounting. Heck, about a century ago they were still sold without prescription in pharmacies, and still there were no more drug addicts than today (or anesthesiologists abusing them). Locking meds up is not a deterrent against abuse (especially by anesthesiologists), but hiring the right people is.

With all these pseudo "wars" going on around us, including the one "against drugs", I feel like in a mixture of 1984 and Animal Farm. I had access to cigarettes all my life, never smoked. I could get drunk whenever, never did. It wouldn't be difficult to get my hands on some weed, not interested. I don't think I am an abnormality, just an average educated person. Why all this fuss?

I grew up in a country where you could go to the pharmacy and buy most schedule IV and V medications without a prescription. Nothing bad happened, people were still seeing doctors, just not for every, single, stupid, thing, such as renewing a prescription.
 
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Several years ago, I wondered the same thing when the pharmacy at one of my institutions started locking up the ephedrine because some of it was walking.

Looked into the chemistry and figured one would need to steal a whole case of the stuff to be worthwhile.

Asked the pharmacy and it turns out they were losing a case at a time.

So, not far fetched per se, but it did seem like locking up small quantities of vials was overkill.

In my current institution, I have some sort of Pyxis in every OR so it is all locked up.

- pod
 
Individual vials don't really contain enough to be meaningful except to a very casual user. You'd have to take dozens of them every day to supply even the smallest commercial lab. Breaking Bad not withstanding, the amounts of cash available from a small scale lab are not remotely worth the risks to a licensed professional.
 
And then they wonder why American healthcare is so expensive... :bang:


Yeah... we had it so very nice over at my shop. Then they forced the omnicell down our throats. I miss my own personal narc box.... :(
 
Here it comes in pre-labelled syringes that we have to get from the pyxis just like fentanyl, and have to waste the same way.

On the subject of wasting, we don't have have to waste non-controlled substances, but a few months ago I got hammer-emailed by a very concerned pharmacist trying to track down 0.2mg of glyco from a case I wasn't even involved in.
 
...On the subject of wasting, we don't have have to waste non-controlled substances, but a few months ago I got hammer-emailed by a very concerned pharmacist trying to track down 0.2mg of glyco from a case I wasn't even involved in.

Glyco has been in and out of shortage for the last year at least. I don't know many outside of us and ENT that might have a use for glycopyrolate.

Ephedrine was in real short supply in one of the hospitals I worked in as a resident. Pharmacy there had to make syringes with Levophed for a pressor until it came back into stock.

They are either going to start making kits for each patient, or something else that will add more paperwork or make our lives miserable when a crash issue comes through when we have to use a drug that isn't expected.
 
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