Should DayQuil Be Legal? • Hacker News Board

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#41

Post by butlike » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

ikesau wrote: post #22

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a southeast asian country and got a staph infection. I walked down to the pharmacy, asked the pharmastst for a topical and an oral antibiotic. 3 days later i was healed, continued the course the rest of the week and that was it. $12 dollars american. I got another staph infection previously in the united states. Needed to go to a doc in the box who misdiagnosed it. A few days went by and i needed to go to a…

I'm sorry that happened to you. Sincerely. That sounds incredibly frustrating, painful, and scary. I think your maximalist conclusion of "drugs should be legalized" might have some second-order effects that might be net worse for society, though. Addiction, misuse, MRSA, overdoses, etc.

But it's part of this world. Who is to say who can participate in aspects of the world?

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#42

Post by esperent » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #35

This article uses the trick where you pick studies that support your argument and ignore all of the studies that disagree with it. There are other studies where Dextromethorphan improves both objective and subjective measures of coughing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37232330/ They also picked a study that shows honey outperforming Dextromethorphan but ignored all the studies that show honey performing similarly o…

> ignored all the studies that show honey performing similarly or slightly worse than Dextromethorphan, or studies where honey showed no measurable effect.

To be fair, you're doing pretty much the same by claiming these studies exist without proof.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#43

Post by Hasz » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

> So the only ingredient that’s doing anything in that bottle of DayQuil makes up just 2% of the bottle: the roughly 8 grams of acetaminophen

this argument makes very little sense. Plenty of very potent drugs are in the single digit mg range in a tablet that weights hundreds of mg.

More importantly, as always, it is a problem of incentives. There is no strong, commercial entity focused on removing ineffective drugs from the market, but plenty of commercial pressure to keep them. The FDA has zero incentive to clean house. The magic hand of the market is supposed to be consumers choosing not to buy these drugs because they are ineffective, but for many reasons (choice, placebo effect, basic scientific literacy) this does not happen.

I don't know what the most effective entity is. I cannot personally imagine a commercial structure to support this, but perhaps one could be built.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#44

Post by christina97 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

This should be divided into three parts: marketing and selling people questionable combo drugs at insane cost (bad), the case of oral phenylephrine (idiotic + bad), and the efficacy of the other drugs in the mix (guaifanesin, etc) (unclear).

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#45

Post by deaton » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

No it should not be, but not because of the dextromethorphan or the phenylephrine being ineffective. By far the biggest issue is the acetaminophen it contains, which it isn't super obvious about, and frequently leads to acetaminophen overdoses. The vast majority of acetaminophen overdoses occur because people combined different medicines containing it (like DayQuil and Tylenol) without realizing they were taking the same thing multiple times. Its a completely preventable cause of liver failure and we should not be making cocktails with it that don't clearly show exactly what they are.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#46

Post by jmalicki » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #35

This article uses the trick where you pick studies that support your argument and ignore all of the studies that disagree with it. There are other studies where Dextromethorphan improves both objective and subjective measures of coughing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37232330/ They also picked a study that shows honey outperforming Dextromethorphan but ignored all the studies that show honey performing similarly o…

An interesting new drug is Auvelity, where Dextromethorphan is proposed to help stimulate neurotropic growth factor to help the brain repair itself, and similar related drugs like dextromethorphan and ketamine and other NMDA receptor antagonists are innovative drugs to help prevent Alzheimer's.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#47

Post by petesergeant » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

> Why do we even have combination over-the-counter products at all?

In America? No idea. In the UK it's because they sell codeine+tylenol OTC, and they want it to poison you if you try and get a codeine buzz from it. Incredibly this is true.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#48

Post by jmalicki » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

deaton wrote: post #45

No it should not be, but not because of the dextromethorphan or the phenylephrine being ineffective. By far the biggest issue is the acetaminophen it contains, which it isn't super obvious about, and frequently leads to acetaminophen overdoses. The vast majority of acetaminophen overdoses occur because people combined different medicines containing it (like DayQuil and Tylenol) without realizing they were taking the…

Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is probably the OTC drug that is at the top of the list to be made RX-only due to its dangers.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#49

Post by jmalicki » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

fooglove34 wrote: post #24

MisterTea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then, overdosing dxm isn't all that healthy and I'd recommend ketamine if you want to experiment like that. Ketamine is neurotoxic itself and can cause permanent brain damage. I can't find the info but there was someone in the tech industry who accidentally overdosed and suffered a two year bout of severe debilitating depression culminating in suicide.

one off experience of someone in a stressful job. are we gate keeping?

It is entirely reasonable to say that it should be RX-only to be monitored by a physician for these reasons.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#50

Post by Aurornis » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #40

Aurornis wrote: post #35

This article uses the trick where you pick studies that support your argument and ignore all of the studies that disagree with it. There are other studies where Dextromethorphan improves both objective and subjective measures of coughing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37232330/ They also picked a study that shows honey outperforming Dextromethorphan but ignored all the studies that show honey performing similarly o…

> There are so many studies and papers published now that you can find both positive and negative results for just about anything. Doesn’t that suggest that the effect overall is neutral?

You can find positive and negative results for everything.

If that implies the effect is neutral, then by extension that means nothing works at all.