You're missing the point. It's the fact that our government created / mandated this multi-agency, multi-state, multi-private/public process and it was implemented in a matter of months. All to prevent people from buying too many boxes of decongestant at one time... The scale of that particular problem pales in comparison to the 100's of billions being tossed to thieves via flawed IRS and UI claims processes.
You lost me at "all to prevent people from buying too many boxes of decongestant at one time". Obviously, nobody --- including the government --- cares how much "decongestant" you need. The problem is that pseudoephedrine is extraordinarily close to methamphetamine and the meth synthesis process is trivial. You can't buy sudafed without an ID for the same reason that you can't buy codeine off the shelf.
It seems that the two of you are talking past each other.
The earlier comment is pointing out that it’s “ridiculous” that the government isn’t able to solve the problem from the article, given that they’ve clearly been able to build a system to track pseudoephedrine sales. They don’t seem to be making any claims about it being ridiculous that they need to talk to a pharmacist to get it, which is what your reply implies they said.
