Government fail(ure)
Seriously, why the hell did we ban pseudoephedrine in New Zealand? Has it had any impact on the “external costs of P”?
I know it has had a serious impact on me during this years flu season – given that all the alternatives suck. And I know a lot of people who feel the same.
Dumb policy with a very obvious and high cost and pretty much no benefit. What is this! How does this rubbish get passed.
Has there been any real movement in the price of P? I’d expect not much. See Dobkin and Nicosia from the AER a while back – showed that the biggest P-precursor bust in the States had only very transitory effects. And here. And I think MacDoctor railed against it too.
@Eric Crampton
I don’t have enough experience with the market for P to know what is going on with the price sadly.
Surely, this winter has illustrated to people how ridiculous the policy was – hopefully we will see some complaints …
My theory is that it was a precautionary policy: they were cracking down on the importing of pseudoepedrine and they wanted to prevent manufacturers from using pharamcies as an alternative source.
@Danyl Mclauchlan
Interesting – could have been the case.
Wish we had clear data on the quantity and price of P over time though, it would make it a lot easier to judge the “effectiveness” of any policy.
Also, I wish I could still get Nurofen to kick this damned flu