It's only certain kinds of OTC drugs, not all cold remedies. For instance, the stuff I get is the 24-hour allergy relief medication, Claritin-D, or its generic equivalents. The regular claritin I could still get without showing an ID.

I don't think it has anything to do with the Patriot act. As stated before, it's to stop the drugs from being bought in large quantities to make meth. It's an example of everyone getting punished because of a few bad apples.

I agree that it's a pain. I tend to stock up on that sort of thing and go to the grocery store infrequently. This means I can only get it between 9 and 5 (the Pharmacy counter's hours), and only 10 tablets at a time. Meaning I'm forced to shop only during banker's hours, and forced to shop more frequently than I otherwise would.

The question was posed: What would a better way to stop meth labs be? How about the police showing up at the ALWAYS WELL KNOWN METH LAB LOCATIONS with a search warrant and jailing the perps. Instead of inconveniencing innocent people. *GASP* there's a novel idea.