Cepacol purchases tracked/rationed?

September 19, 2012 12:18 PM

I bought a pack of Cepacol lozenges at my local neighborhood pharmacy here in Massachusetts, and was surprised that I was required to scan my driver's license to get it. Active ingredients are listed as Benzocaine 7.5 mg and Dextromethorphan Hbr 5 mg, none of which I recognize as chemical precursors to drugs with a high potential for abuse, like (for instance) Pseudoephedrine. Dextromethorphan does have some potential for abuse on its own, but the ingredient is common to most cold formulations, none of which are tracked or rationed. Does anyone here have a good explanation for the driver's license requirement?
posted by The Confessor to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Best answer: It's the DXM, it has abuse potential, and the same rule would apply to other cold medications containing DXM. You may not have been buying many cold medicines lately but a lot of them are actually going behind the counter or getting ID requirements due to abuse, depending on your state.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:27 PM on September 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have to show my driver's license whenever I buy anything with dextromethorphan here in Massachusetts, and have for a while. I don't know if it's a voluntary procedure from the pharmacy or if there's an actual state regulation about it.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:36 PM on September 19, 2012

When I worked at a Rite Aid in the early 80s, the Robitussin DM was kept behind the pharmacy counter because people would open the packages, drink it and put the packages back empty (harder to do now with tamper-evident packaging, obviously), so the abuse potential is not just well-known, but known for a long time.
posted by tommasz at 12:50 PM on September 19, 2012

Response by poster: Sidhedevil

I think that the variable here is that I've always bought my (DXM-containing) cough syrup from groceries, rather than pharmacies. It's likely that any store that has a working pharmacy must abide by additional restrictions.
posted by The Confessor at 1:02 PM on September 19, 2012

It may also be that DXM is usually paired with acetaminophen or something else that will explode your liver before you start dosing enough to trip. Although, I really have no idea what 150+ cough drops worth of benzocaine would do to you.
posted by cmoj at 2:51 PM on September 19, 2012