I'm not sure about making speed, but I know it's a main ingredient used to make meth.

I believe methamphetamine is a form of speed. Sudaphed is regulated here in the U.S.A. for that very reason. You can't buy more than one sell unit at a time. However, most big stores (Costco, for instance) get around that by selling Sudaphed 1 box per sell unit right beside "Suphedrine" or some other house brand, 3 boxes per sell unit.

Jeebus! I'm never leaving the borders of the US again... I couldn't get through a week without access to my antihistamines, decongestants, and other things that keep me able to take in oxygen.

Hm, I think in Florida they don't have anything against buying more than one unit of Sudafed. There was a 2-for-1 special at Albertson's a couple of weeks ago that I took advantage of. Whoo hoo, I'm a lawbreaker in some places!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Nyquil have pseudoephedrine in it as well? If so, you'd probably be out of luck in Singapore as well...

There's something else in decongestants and the like that is a hollucinagenic (sp?) when taken in large quantities. Apparently the kids here in the U.S. do this and call it Robotripping.

Those zany Dutch!
See if they'll let you have some heroin. Some users find it makes them "nod off".

[Public statement: info obtained while I was a drug counselor. I never touched the stuff..]

In Canada, Vitamin K is for some reason illegal. This was all kinds of fun for me when I was there over the winter a couple of years ago, since I get nasty nosebleeds in very cold weather unless I take Vitamin K regularly. I carried AC&C back to the US, and Vitamin K into Canada each time I went back and forth.

I take ibuprofen for everything. Cheap, universally available, and an excellent placebo.

As amy noted, it's almost certainly the dextromethorphan (cough suppressant) that keeps NyQuil off the market, not the pseudoephedrine (which, however, can be chemically converted in a very nasty, dangerous process to methamphetamine).

Dextromethorphan is usually combined with other drugs, like acetaminophen (a.k.a. paracetamol), guaifenesin (expectorant), or antihistamines. If you get it by itself, it has some properties that I'll let you read about wherever you like. Google for DXM (which is apparently the preferred Internet term for the drug).

What is paracetemol anyway? What does it do? What do people think it does? I have never experienced any effects from taking it at all, and yet my British friends take it for everything from fevers and sore throat to hay fever symptoms, and you can only buy 3 packs at a pop from Boots. A British doctor even gave it to me when I thought I had meningitis. (I didn't have it, thank goodness.) Personally I think it's a sugar pill. But then why the regulation? And I've never seen it here in the US. Is it the equivalent of acetaminophen or a totally different animal?

You can buy 8mg codeine OTC in Canada, but not in the US. In Mexico, you can buy about whatever you want to at the pharmacy. In Brazil, you could go into a pharmacy, have them give you a shot of penicillin.

I don't understand why we need a permission note to buy the drugs we want. Doctors have you come in for an office visit, simply to make you go through them to get your prescription. This is for economic reasons, not medical. Internet Pharmacies are gradually breaking down prescription laws as people buy from overseas to save money. Eventually, drug stores here will demand the right to sell without prescriptions.

CRL: Paracetamol is called Tylenol in the US.

FYI, if you really, really want a good night's sleep, try Zolpidem (known in the U.S. as Ambien). You'll need a doctor's prescription, but at only €10 or so for a month's supply, it's worth it IMHO.

I am very reluctant to start using any medication that has addictive properties, as Ambien does. I know it works well, because a friend of mine once gave me half a pill. I slept really well with that. Currently my insomnia is not bad enough to warrant such drastic intervention though.

The ingredient in "decongestants" that kids "robotrip" off of is called Dextromethorphan (DXM). And, speaking as an experienced DXM user, I feel obliged to inform you that most people who use DXM for it's mind-expanding (not hallucinogenic) properties stay away from medicines that combine DXM with decongestants and antihistamines, as those are generally not good to take in large doses. If you do a search on Google, you will find that out (the term "robotripping" is used because the main medicine of choice for DXM users is Robitussin Maximum stracgth Cough, which contains only DXM).